PICRUSt2 functionally predicts organic compounds degradation and sulfate reduction pathways in an acidogenic bioreactor

For comprehensive insights into the influences of sulfate on performance,microbial community and metabolic pathways in the acidification phase of a two-phase anaerobic system,a laboratory-scale acidogenic bioreactor was continuously operated to treat wastewater with elevated sulfate concentrations from 2000 to 14000 mg/L.The results showed that the acidogenic bioreactor could achieve sulfate reduction efficiency of greater than 70%for influent sulfate content less than 12000 mg/L.Increased sulfate induced the accumulation of volatile fatty acids(VPAs),especially propionate and butyrate,which was the primary negative effects to system performance under the high-sulfate environment.High-throughput sequencing coupled with PICRUSt2 uncovered that the accumulation of VFAs was triggered by the decreasing of genes encoding short-chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase(EC:1.3.8.1),regulating the transformation of propanoyl-CoA to propenoyl-CoA and butanoyl-CoA to crotonyl-CoA of propionate and butyrate oxidation pathways,which made these two process hardly proceed.Besides,genes encoding(EC:1.3.8.1)were mainly carried by order Clostridiales.Desulfovibrio was the most abundant sulfate-reducing bacteria and identified as the primary host of dissimilatory sulfate reduction ftinctional genes.Functional analysis indicated the dissimilatory sulfate reduction process predominated under a low sulfate environment,but was not favored under the circumstance of high-sulfate.With the increase of sulfate,the assimilatory sulfate reduction process finally overwhelmed dissimilatory as the dominant sulfate reduction pathway in acidogenic bioreactor.

Waste activated sludge treatment based on temperature staged and biologically phased anaerobic digestion system

The concept of temperature staged and biological phased （TSBP） was proposed to enhance the performance of waste-activated sludge anaerobic digestion. Semi-continuous experiments were used to investigate the effect of temperature （35 to 70℃） as well as the hydraulic retention time （HRT） （2, 4 and 6 days） on the acidogenic phase. The results showed that the solubilization degree of waste- activated sludge increased from 14.7% to 30.1% with temperature increasing from 35 to 70℃, while the acidification degree was highest at 45℃ （17.6%）, and this was quite different from the temperature impact on hydrolysis. Compared with HRT of 2 and 6 days, 4 days was chosen as the appropriate HRT because of its relatively high solubilization degree （24.6%） and acidification degree （20.1%） at 45℃. The TSBP system combined the acidogenic reactor （45℃, 4 days） with the methanogenic reactor （35℃, 16 days） and the results showed 84.8% and 11.4% higher methane yield and volatile solid reduction, respectively, compared with that of the single-stage anaerobic digestion system with HRT of 20 days at 35℃. Moreover, different microbial morphologies were observed in the acidogenic- and methanogenic-phase reactors, which resulted from the temperature control and HRT adjustment. All the above results indicated that 45℃ was the optimum temperature to inhibit the activity of methanogenic bacteria in the acidogenic phase, and temperature staging and phase separation was thus accomplished. The advantages of the TSBP process were also confirmed by a full-scale waste-activated sludge anaerobic digestion project which was an energy self-sufficient system.