| Name: | Description: | Size: | Format: | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.38 MB | Adobe PDF |
Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
Industrial effluents often contain organic pollutants and variable salinity levels, making their treatment challenging. Aerobic granular sludge (AGS) is an innovative and compact wastewater treatment technology for the treatment of domestic and industrial water streams. The high content of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) in AGS composition is thought to protect , to some extent, the microbial communities from stressful conditions in external environment.
This work aimed to evaluate the robustness of AGS systems in terms of nutrient removal performance and to unravel the protective role of EPS towards transient feeding with a toxic pollutant (2-fluorophenol - 2-FP) in saline wastewater. Moreover, the taxonomic and functional patterns of the AGS microbiome were characterized and linked with nutrient removal performance and EPS production. In order to mimic transient states of composition typical of industrial effluents, the reactor inlet medium periodically varied regarding to 2-FP presence and salt concentration.