Microbial community assembly in engineered bioreactors

\ua9 2024Microbial community assembly (MCA) processes that shape microbial communities in environments are being used to analyze engineered bioreactors such as activated sludge systems and anaerobic digesters. The goal of studying MCA is to be able to understand and predict the effect of design and operation procedures on bioreactor microbial composition and function. Ultimately, this can lead to bioreactors that are more efficient, resilient, or resistant to perturbations. This review summarizes the ecological theories underpinning MCA, evaluates MCA analysis methods, analyzes how these MCA-based methods are applied to engineered bioreactors, and extracts lessons from case studies. Furthermore, we suggest future directions in MCA research in engineered bioreactor systems. The review aims to provide insights and guidance to the growing number of environmental engineers who wish to design and understand bioreactors through the lens of MCA

Development in-house: a trap method for pretreatment of fat, oil, and grease in kitchen wastewater

Most of the commercial restaurant and domestic house kitchen does not equip with the proper kitchen wastewater treatment. These wastes contain high concentrations of fat, oil, and grease (FOG) which are disposed into the sewerage network and increase the sanitary sewer overflow (SSO). The present chapter discusses the individual treatment systems which are used for the removal of FOG from the kitchen wastewater. The most common and cheapest FOG treatment system is by using the gravity separation. However, in order to increase the efficiency of these systems, some of the researchers have been using natural materials to enhance the adsorption process of FOG. The establishment of a reliable FOG treatment system for each house based on the separation system might contribute effectively in the FOG removal concentration in the kitchen wastewater

CFD for wastewater treatment : an overview

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a rapidly emerging field in wastewater treatment (WWT), with application to almost all unit processes. This paper provides an overview of CFD applied to a wide range of unit processes in water and WWT from hydraulic elements like flow splitting to physical, chemical and biological processes like suspended growth nutrient removal and anaerobic digestion. The paper's focus is on articulating the state of practice and research and development needs. The level of CFD's capability varies between different process units, with a high frequency of application in the areas of final sedimentation, activated sludge basin modelling and disinfection, and greater needs in primary sedimentation and anaerobic digestion. While approaches are comprehensive, generally capable of incorporating non-Newtonian fluids, multiphase systems and biokinetics, they are not broad, and further work should be done to address the diversity of process designs. Many units have not been addressed to date. Further needs are identified throughout, but common requirements include improved particle aggregation and breakup (flocculation), and improved coupling of biology and hydraulics