Reducing sludge production and the domination of Comamonadaceae by reducing the oxygen supply in the wastewater treatment procedure of a food-processing factory

Abstract

Sludge production was reduced remarkably by reducing the dissolved oxygen supply to less than 1 mg/ℓ in the conventional wastewater treatment procedure of a food-processing factory that produced 180 m3 of wastewater of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) of about 1,000 mg/ℓ daily. DNA was extracted from the sludge and subjected to PCR amplification. The PCR product was cloned into a plasmid and sequenced. Estimation of the resident bacterial distribution by 16S rDNA sequences before and after improvement of the system suggested a remarkable gradual change in the major bacterial population from Anaerolinaeceae (15.6%) to Comamonadaceae (52.3%), members of denitrifying bacteria of Proteobacteria. Although we did not directly confirm the ability of denitrification of the resulting sludge, a change in the major final electron acceptors from oxygen to nitrate might explain the reduction in sludge production in a conventional activated sludge process when the oxygen supply was limitted.