• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.666-674
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• 2022

The removal efficiencies of nutrients (N and P) and heavy metals (Cu and Ni) by Rhodobacter blasticus and R. blasticus attached to polysulfone carriers, alginate carriers, PVA carriers, and PVA + zeolite carriers in synthetic wastewater were compared. In the comparison of the nutrient removal efficiency based on varying concentrations (100, 200, 500, and 1000 mg/L), R. blasticus + polysulfone carrier treatment showed removal efficiencies of 98.9~99.84% for N and 96.92~99.21% for P. The R. blasticus + alginate carrier treatment showed removal efficiencies of 88.04~97.1% for N and 90.33~97.13% for P. The R. blasticus + PVA carrier treatment showed removal efficiencies of 18.53~44.25% for N and 14.93~43.63% for P. The R. blasticus + PVA + zeolite carrier treatment showed removal efficiencies of 26.65~64.33% for N and 23.44~64.05% for P. In addition, at the minimum inhibitory concentration of heavy metals, R. blasticus (dead cells) + polysulfone carrier treatment showed removal efficiencies of 7.77% for Cu and 12.19% for Ni. Rhodobacter blasticus (dead cells) + alginate carrier treatment showed removal efficiencies of 25.83% for Cu and 31.12% for Ni.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.73-82
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• 1996

The removal efficiencies of organic substrates, nitrogen and phosphorus in the anaerobic-aerobic biological phosphorus removal process were investigated by addition of acetic acid, propionic acid and butyric acid which are normal volatile fatty acids contained in anaerobic digester supernatants. Substrate utilization coefficients for the phosphorus release and uptake were also estimated. The effect of a VFA, which showed higher phosphorus removal efficiency than the other VFAs did, was also studied in an anaerobic-aerobic-anoxic biological nutrient removal process. For the anaerobic-aerobic process added by VFA, the phosphorus removal efficiencies were up to about 68%, 55% and 61% for the reactors of acetic acid, propionic acid and butyric acid added, respectively, which indicates the efficiencies were increased by about 8-21%, comparing to that of 47% for the reactor with no VFA added. There were no significant difference in removal efficiencies for organic substrate and $NH_3-N$ without regard to addition of VFA. However, the removal efficiency of total nitrogen was increased in the case of VFA added, since $NO_3-N$ was less produced. For the anaerobic-aerobic-anoxic process added VFA, the removal efficiencies for $NH_3-N$ and $PO{_4}^{3-}-P$ were increased by 5% and 13%, respectively, comparing with them in the reactors not added VFA.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.929-935
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• 2002

The 5-stage biological nutrient removal (BNR) process with step feed system showed a very stable organic carbon and nutrient removal efficiency ($87\%\;COD\,;79\%\;nitrogen,\;and\;87\%$ phosphorus) for an operation period of 2 years. In each stage at the pilot plant, microbial communities, which are important in removing nitrogen and phosphorus, were investigated using fluorescence in-situ hybridization (FISH) and 165 rDNA characterization. All tanks of 5-stage sludge had a similar composition of bacterial communities. The totat cell numbers of each reactor were found to be around $2.36-2.83{\times}10^9$ cells/ml. About $56.5-62.0\%$ of total 4,6-diamidino-2-phenylindol (DAPI) cells were hybridized to the bacterial-specific probe EUB388. Members of ${\beta}$-proteobacteria were the most abundant proteobacterial group, accounting for up to $20.6-26.7\%$. The high G+C Gram-positive bacterial group and Cytophaga-Flexibacter cluster counts were also found to be relatively high. The beta subclass proteobacteria did not accumulate a large amount of polyphosphate. The proportion of phosphorus-accumulating organisms (PAOs) in the total population of the sludge was almost $50\%$ in anoxic-1 tank. The high G+C Gram-positive bacteria and Cytophaga-Flexibacter cluster indicate a key role of denitrifying phosphorus-accumulating organisms (dPAOs). Both groups might be correlated with some other subclass of proteobacteria for enhancing nitrogen and phosphorus removal in this process.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.92-98
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• 2013

Microalgal cultivation using wastewater is now regarded as essential for biodiesel production, as two goals can be achieved simultaneously; that is, nutrient removal efficiency and biomass production. Therefore, this study examined the effects of carbon sources, the N:P ratio, and the hydraulic retention time (HRT) to identify the optimal conditions for nutrient removal efficiency and biomass production. The effluent from a 2nd lagoon was used to cultivate microalgae. Whereas the algal species diversity and lipid content increased with a longer HRT, the algal biomass productivity decreased. Different carbon sources also affected the algal species composition. Diatoms were dominant with an increased pH when bicarbonate was supplied. However, 2% $CO_2$ gas led to a lower pH and the dominance of filamentous green algae with a much lower biomass productivity. Among the experiments, the highest chlorophyll-a concentration and lipid productivity were obtained with the addition of phosphate up to 0.5 mg/l P, since phosphorus was in short supply compared with nitrogen. The N and P removal efficiencies were also higher with a balanced N:P ratio, based on the addition of phosphate. Thus, optimizing the N:P ratio for the dominant algae could be critical in attaining higher algal growth, lipid productivity, and nutrient removal efficiency.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2004

Changes in the bacterial populations of a 5-stage biological nutrient removal (BNR) process, with a step feed system for wastewater treatment, were monitored by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) of PCR-amplified 16S ribosomal DNA fragments. DGGE analysis indicated seasonal community changes were observed, however, community profiles of the total bacteria of each reactor showed only minor differences in the samples obtained from the same season. The number of major bands was higher in the summer samples, and decreased during the winter period, indicating that the microbial community structure became simpler at low temperatures. Since the nitrogen and phosphate removal efficiencies were highly maintained throughout the winter operation period, the bacteria which still remaining in the winter sample can be considered important, playing a key role in the present 5-stage BNR sludge. The prominent DGGE bands were excised, and sequenced to gain insight into the identities of the predominant bacterial populations present, and most were found to not be closely related to previously characterized bacteria. These data suggest the importance of culture-independent methods for the quality control of wastewater treatment.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.444-450
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• 2006

This study was carried out to compare the performance of two types of sequencing batch biofilm reactors (SBBRs), anoxic-oxic-anoxic-oxic $(AO)_2$ SBBR and anoxic-oxic-anoxic $A_2O$ SBBR, on the biological nutrient removal. The TOC removal efficiency in $A_2O$ SBBR was higher than that in $(AO)_2$ SBBR. At the 1st non-aeration period, the release of ${PO_4}^{3-}-P$ in $A_2O$ SBBR was higher than that in $(AO)_2$ SBBR because of the high TOC removal. At the 1st aeration-period, the nitrification was not completed in $(AO)_2$ SBBR, however, it was completed in $A_2O$ SBBR and the nitrification rate in $A_2O$ SBBR was higher than that in $(AO)_2$ SBBR. The release and uptake of ${PO_4}^{3-}-P$ in $A_2O$ SBBR was much higher than in $(AO)_2$ SBBR. Also, the profiles of DO and pH in reactors were used to monitor the biological nutrient removal in two SBBRs. The break point in DO and pH curves at the aeration period coincided with the end of nitrification.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.12 no.7
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• pp.791-799
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• 2003

This study was carried out to get more operational characteristics of the sequencing batch biofilm reactors with media volume/reactor volume ratio of 15 %, 25 % and 35 %. Experiments were conducted to find the effects of the media packing ratio on organic matters and nutrients removal. Three laboratory scale reactors were fed with synthetic wastewater. During studies, the operation mode was fixed. The organic removal efficiency didn't show large difference among three reactor of different packing media ratios. However, from the study results, the optimum packing media ratios for biological nutrient removal was shown as 25%. The denitrifying PAOs could take up and store phosphate using nitrate as electron acceptor.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.461-466
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• 2011

The feasibility of utilizing food waste leachate as an external carbon source was tested to enhance biological nutrient removal from an industrial wastewater with an average flow rate of $164,800m^3/d$ and a low carbon/nitrogen ratio of 2.8. A considerable improvement in the removal of nitrogen and phosphorus was observed when a certain amount of the leachate, ranging from 70 to $142m^3/d$, was supplemented to the biological industrial wastewater treatment process. The addition of the leachate led to an increase in the BOD/N ratio (4.5) and the removal efficiency of nutritents from 29.7% to 71.7% for nitrogen and from 34.8% to 65.6% for phosphorus. However, an excessive dose of the leachate that significantly exceeded $120m^3/d$ caused serious operational problems, like oil-layer formation in the grit chamber and scum layer in the primary clarifier. Thus, an supplement of food waste leachate at a dose acceptable to an existing facilities can be a practical and effective means to enhance the nutrient removal from industrial wastewater and to dispose of the food waste leachate.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.26-33
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• 2006

To understand the efficient process of biological nitrogen removal (BNR) system, the structure of bacterial communities in nitrification reactors was analyzed using PCR and terminal restriction fragment length poly morphism (I-RFLP) methods. In this study, we used an advanced treatment system with plotting media, Nutrient Removal Laboratory system, or the rumination type sequencing batch reactor (SBR) system. The terminal restriction fragments of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and other $\beta-proteobacteria$ were observed in all of three BNR systems. The nucleotide sequence analysis of terminal restriction fragments showed that Nitrosomonas and Nitrosolobus were major populations of AOB in SBR system, whereas uncultured $\beta-proteobacteria$ and Cardococcus australiensis were the predominant groups in other two BNR systems. Also the SBR system may be more efficient to enrich AOB. These results indicate that the different structure of bacterial community may be developed depending on the wastewater treatment systems, although the same influent is used.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.120-124
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• 2009

This study was performed to investigate the application of submerged membrane bioreactor (MBR) system for biological nutrient removal of municipal wastewater. MBR bioreactor consists of four reactors such as anaerobic, stabilization, anoxic and submerged membrane aerobic reactors with two internal recycles. The hydraulic retention time (HRT), sludge retention time (SRT) and flux were 6.2 hr, 34.1 days and $19.6L/m^2/hr$ (LMH), respectively. As a result of operation, the removal efficiency of $COD_{Cr}$, SS, TN and TP were 94.3%, 99.9%, 69.4%, and 74.6%, respectively. There was no significant effect of microbial activity after the maintenance cleaning using 200 mg/L of NaOCl. Membrane filtration for the treatment of municipal wastewater was performed for longer than 9 months without chemical recovery cleaning.