Culturing partial denitrification biofilm in side stream incubator with ordinary activated sludge as inoculum: One step closer to mainstream Anammox upgrade

Recently, adding carriers into anoxic zone is proposed for mainstream Anammox upgrade, which relied on the denitrifiers responsible for partial denitrification (PD) to generate essential nitrite for Anammox bacteria. Still, their low abundance in the naturally formed biofilm leads to insufficient nitrite supply. This study investigated the sequential culturing of PD biofilm. By inoculating ordinary activated sludge, the PD process was quickly established within 54-day. During that, decreasing carbon to nitrogen ratio and anoxic duration in order might be effective strategies. Adding carriers shifted the microbial community, especially the proliferation of Flavobacterium. When solely using the mature PD biofilm, high nitrate to nitrite transformation ratio (>70%) was obtained. Meanwhile, both nitrate-reducing and nitrite-generating processes slowed down and lasted ~90 min. In addition, abundant Simplicispira candidate for PD was detected in biofilm. This study also suggests that regularly harvesting PD-related functional bacteria from a side-stream incubator promotes mainstream Anammox upgrade.