Influence of co-substrate on textile wastewater treatment and microbial community changes in the anaerobic biological sulfate reduction process

Kashif Rasool, Khaled A. Mahmoud, Dae Sung Lee

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

36 Scopus citations

Abstract

This study investigated the anaerobic treatment of sulfate-rich synthetic textile wastewater in three sulfidogenic sequential batch reactors (SBRs). The experimental protocol was designed to examine the effect of three different co-substrates (lactate, glucose, and ethanol) and their concentrations on wastewater treatment performance. Sulfate reduction and dye degradation were improved when lactate and ethanol were used as electron donors, as compared with glucose. Moreover, under co-substrate limited concentrations, color, sulfate, and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiencies were declined. By reducing co-substrate COD gradually from 3000 to 500. mg/L, color removal efficiencies were decreased from 98.23% to 78.46%, 63.37%, and 69.10%, whereas, sulfate removal efficiencies were decreased from 98.42%, 82.35%, and 87.0%, to 30.27%, 21.50%, and 10.13%, for lactate, glucose, and ethanol fed reactors, respectively. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and total aromatic amine analysis revealed lactate to be a potential co-substrate for further biodegradation of intermediate metabolites formed after dye degradation. Pyrosequencing analysis showed that microbial community structure was significantly affected by the co-substrate. The reactor with lactate as co-substrate showed the highest relative abundance of sulfate reducing bacteria (SRBs), followed by ethanol, whereas the glucose-fed reactor showed the lowest relative abundance of SRB.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)453-461
Number of pages9
JournalJournal of Hazardous Materials
Volume299
DOIs
StatePublished - 4 Aug 2015

Keywords

  • Co-substrate
  • Decolorization
  • Direct Red 80
  • Microbial community
  • Sulfidogenic sludge

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