• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.378-384
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• 2003

Mesophilically-grown granular sludge seeded in thermophilic UASB reactor was monitored to better understand the start-up process of the reactor. The reactor was fed with a synthetic wastewater containing glucose. As COD loading rate increased stepwise, methane production rate increased. Maximum values of COD removal efficiency (95%) and methane production rate (5.3 l/day) were achieved by approximately day-80 and remained constant afterward. However, physicochemical and microbial properties of granules kept changing even after day-80. Specific methanogenic activity (SMA) was initially negligible, and increased continuously until day-153 and remained constant afterward, showing the maximum value of $1.51{\pm}0.13\;g\;CH_4-COD/g$ VSS/day. Deteriorated settling ability of granules recovered the initial value by day-98 and was maintained afterward, as determined by sludge volume index. Initially reduced granule size increased until day-126, reaching a plateau of 1.1 mm. Combined use of fluorescence in situ hybridization and confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) allowed to localize families of Methanosaetaceae and Merhanosarcinaceae in granules with time Quantitative analyses of CLSM images of granule sections showed abundance patterns of the methanogens and numerical dominance of Methanosaeta spp. throughout the start-up period. The trend of SMA agreed well with abundance patterns of the methanogens.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2001.04a
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• pp.172-181
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• 2001

Upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) system employs granular sludge to treat various wastewaters including landfill leachate. CH$_4$ production of the granules determines overall performance of a UASB reactor. Sludge granules are developed by self-granulation of microorganisms and dynamic balance between granule growth and decay results in coexistence of granules with different sizes in the reactor. In this study, granules taken from a laboratory-scale UASB reactor were classified into 4 groups based on their diameters and their Physicochemical characteristics we were investigated. Each group was analyzed for settling ability, specific methanogenic activity (SMA), and elemental content. Settling ability was proportional to granule diameter. suggesting effective detainment of larger granules in the reactor. When acetate or glucose was used as a substrate, all groups showed relatively slight difference in SMA. However SMA with a volatile fatty acid mixture showed significant increase with granule diameter, suggesting better establishment of syntrophic relationship in larger granules. Larger granules showed higher value of SMA upon environmental changes (i.e., PH, temperature, or toxicant concentration). Comparative analysis of elemental contents showed that content (dry weight %) of most tested elements (iron, calcium, phosphorus, zinc, nickel. and manganese) deceased with granule diameter, suggesting importance of these elements for initial granulation. Taken together, this study verified experimentally that Physicochemical Properties of granules are related to granule size distributions. Overall results of physicochemical characterization supports that larger.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.993-997
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• 2007

The upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor can be effective for treating simple organic compounds containing high concentration of ammonia nitrogen. The chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency was about 80% at ammonia nitrogen concentration up to 6,000 mg-N/L. This result also showed that it would be possible to treat propionate effectively at free ammonia nitrogen concentration up to 724 mg-N/L if sufficient time was allowed for adaptation. However the specific methanogenic activity (SMA) of granule was lower than that of granule in the reactor with lower ammonia nitrogen concentration. At 8,000 mg-N/L, the inhibition of high ammonia concentration was observed with evidence of increase of the volatile suspended solids (VSS) concentration in the effluent. It might be ascribed to the decrease in the content of extracellular polymer (ECP), which resulted to the sloughing off of obligated proton-reducing acetogens and heterogenotrophic methanogens from the exterior of granular sludge. This caused a great portion of the finely sludge to be easily washed out. Therefore, failure to maintain the balance between these two groups of microorganism cause accumulation of the hydrogen partial pressure in the reactor, which could have inhibited the growth of acetate utilizing methanogens.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.78-85
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• 2000

Leachate from acidogenic fermentation of food waste was effectively treated by the UASB reactor at $37^{\circ}C$. The efficiency of COD removal was consistently over 96% up to the loading rates of $15.8g\;COD/{\ell}{\cdot}d$. The methane production rate increased to $5.5{\ell}/{\ell}{\cdot}d$. Of all the COD removed, 92% was converted to methane and the rest presumably to biomass. At loading rates over $18.7g\;COD/{\ell}{\cdot}d$, the efficiency of COD removal decreased due to the sludge flotation and washout in the reactor, which resulted from short HRT of less than 10.6 hr. The SMA(specific methanogenic activity) analysis showed that the VFA-degrading activity of granule was the highest for butyrate, and the lowest for propionate. This result was consistent with the observation that the residual propionate concentration was the highest among the VFAs in the effluent. Typical granules were found to be mainly composed of microcolonies of Methanosaeta. Though the original seed sludge contained 64.3% of particles smaller than 1.4mm, the sludge particles had been growing during the fermentation, and at the final step of this study, 75.1% of the particles were found to be larger than 1.4 mm in the UASB reactor.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.136-146
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• 2007

Landfill leachate was successfully treated in upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactors regardless of the addition of granular sludge. Initial operating period was significantly reduced by the addition of granular sludge. At hydraulic retention time (HRT) of one day, chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal rates in Control and Granule reactor were maintained over 90%, respectively with organic loading rate (OLR) of $4-8kgCOD/m^3.d$. During the experiment, the inorganic precipitates were accumulated in and around the sludge, and in the wall of the reactors were formed in both reactors regardless of addition of granular sludge. Specific methanogenic activity (SMA) increased as adaptation of microorganism to the substrate and OLR were increased. The maximum SMA value of the sludge for Granule reactor was about $0.57gCOD/g{\cdot}VSS{\cdot}.d$. The SMA value was not decreased because of excessive inorganic accumulation, however, it was needed to have pre-treatment process of influent to remove the inorganic metals.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.31 no.11
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• pp.997-1006
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• 2009

Organic removal efficiency and methane production rate, a feasibility of power generation from biogas, and the optimum conditions for membrane operation were evaluated for the pilot scale (5 tons/day) two-phase anaerobic digestion coupled with ultra filtration (TPADUF) system fed with garbage leachate. The TPADUF system is consisted of a thermophilic acidogenic reactor, a mesophilic methanogenic reactor, and an UF membrane. When garbage leachate with 150 g/L of TCOD was fed to the TPADUF up to organic loading rate (OLR) of 11.1 g COD/L/d, the effluent TCOD was lower than 6 g/L and the average removal efficiencies of TCOD and SCOD were higher than 95%. The methane composition of the gas was 65%, and the methane yield was 39 $m^3/m^3$ garbage leachatefed, 260 $m^3$/tons $COD_{added}$, or 270 $m^3$/tons $COD_{removed}$, even there was some gas leak. The power production per consumed gas was 0.96 kWh/$m^3$ gas or 1.49 kWh/$m^3$ methane. This lower power production efficiency mainly due to the small capacity of gas engine (15 kW class). The membrane was operated at the average flux of 10 L/$m^2$/hr. When the flux decreased, washing with water and chemical (NaOCl) was conducted to restore the flux. In the TPADUF system, optimum pH could be maintained without alkali addition by recycling the membrane concentrate or mixed liquor of the methanogenic digester to the acidogenic reactor. Also, partial production of methane in the acidogenic reactor had a positive effect on lowering the OLR of the methanogenic reactor.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.47-54
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• 1996

UASB reactor was operated for treating wastewater containing high sulfate to assess their performance, competition between sulfate-reducing bacteria(SRB) and methane-producing bacteria(MPB), and the change in the characteristics of microbial granules according to change of hydraulic retention time(HRT) in the reactor. The reactor was fed with a synthetic moderate strength wastes(glucose, 2000 mgCOD/l) containing high sulfate($2400mgSO_4{^{2-}}/l$). The organic loading rate(OLR) ranged from 1.5 to 3.0 gCOD/l.d as HRT maintained 15 to 30 hrs in the stage I. The COD removal efficiency was between 80 to 92%. During this period, methane yield rapidly decreased from 0.3 to 0.1 1 $CH_4$/gCODremoved. While sulfide concentration in the effluent increased from 80 to 200 mgS/l. This indicates that SRB becomes dominant over MPB at a relatively long HRT in the excess sulfate. When OLR of reactor maintained from 5 to 8 gCOD/l.d in the stage II, methane yield increased from 0.1 to 0.17 1 $CH_4$/gCODremoved regardless of decrease of COD removal efficiency. This indicates that SRB is more sensitive to the change of a short HRT than MPB. In the competition between SRB and MPB, about 30% of the removed COD was utilized by SRB at HRT of 30 hrs during the start-up period, while about 73% was used by SRB at HRT of 15hrs at the final step of second experimental stage. Whereas after shock exposure of OLR about 62% was utilized by SRB at HRT of 5hrs. It indicates that SRB is strongly suppressed by the wash-out of significant dispersed SRB since a large electron flow is distributed to the MPB. In addition, the granulation in the presence of high sulfate is unfavoured at a long HRT because of substrate transport limitations into MPB like Methanothrix spp. which is an important factor in the composition of the granules. Accordingly, granule sizes in the UASB reactor decreased with time due to weak network frame of granules by the decreased activity of MPB.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.110-119
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• 2016

High-solid anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge achieves highly efficient volatile solid reduction, and production of volatile fatty acid (VFA) and methane compared with conventional low-solid anaerobic digestion. In this study, the potential mechanisms of the better performance in high-solid anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge were investigated by using 454 high-throughput pyrosequencing and real-time PCR to analyze the microbial characteristics in sewage sludge fermentation reactors. The results obtained by 454 highthroughput pyrosequencing revealed that the phyla Chloroflexi, Bacteroidetes, and Firmicutes were the dominant functional microorganisms in high-solid and low-solid anaerobic systems. Meanwhile, the real-time PCR assays showed that high-solid anaerobic digestion significantly increased the number of total bacteria, which enhanced the hydrolysis and acidification of sewage sludge. Further study indicated that the number of total archaea (dominated by Methanosarcina) in a high-solid anaerobic fermentation reactor was also higher than that in a low-solid reactor, resulting in higher VFA consumption and methane production. Hence, the increased key bacteria and methanogenic archaea involved in sewage sludge hydrolysis, acidification, and methanogenesis resulted in the better performance of high-solid anaerobic sewage sludge fermentation.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.21-27
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• 2012

This study evaluated the performance of a thermophilic two-phase anaerobic digestion (TTPAD) coupled with membrane process treating garbage leachate. The pilot-scale treatment system is consisted of thermophilic acidogenic reactor (TAR) and thermophilic methanogenic reactor (TMR) coupled with an ultrafiltration (UF) membrane unit. The hydraulic retention time of TAR and TMR were 4 and 20 days, respectively. Effluent TCOD and SCOD of the TTPAD were $25\;{\pm}\;6\;and\;12\;{\pm}\;3$ g/L, respectively, and the corresponding TCOD and SCOD removal efficiencies were 77% and 81%, respectively. Propionate was major acids as 75% in the effluent. Scum formation was not observed in TTPAD, which might be resulted from complete lipid degradation. However, TTPAD was appeared to be sensitive to free ammonia toxicity. The UF membrane was operated with constant pressure filtration at average TMP 1.3 atm. Permeate flux had a range of 15-30 $L/m^2/hr$. With UF membrane, TCOD removal increased from 77% to 93%, and this SS free effluent would be beneficial to subsequent processes such as ammonia stripping.

• Journal of environmental and Sanitary engineering
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.185-194
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• 1998

Laboratory-scale investigation into initial anaerobic biofilm development was carried out by circulating mixed liquor from a steady-state anaerobic reactor through silicone tubing and then rerurning the mixed liquor to the reactor. The wall of the silicone tubing was the surface upon which anaerobic biofilm accumulation or development was monitored. Methanogenic bacteria accumulation was monitored by F$_{420}$ fluorescence (picomoles F$_{420}$/cm$^{2}$) of the extracted biofilm material. Biofilm accumulation was measured by the increase in COD of the extracted material ($\mu $g COD/cm$^{2}$). Experiments were conducted for 25 days, and biofilm analyses were performed at 5 days intervals. The results indicated that the initial rates of methangen and anaerobic biofilm accumulation increased with increasing organic loading rate and higher initial rates were observed for 15 days than 15 day liquid HRT or SRT. When the initial rates were plotted against the corresponding mixed liquor volatile suspended solids the difference between the results at the two HRT's became much less significant. Thus, the concentration of mixed liquor volatile suspended solids was found to be a very important parameter affecting initial anaerobic biofilm development. The ratio of methanogens to anaerobic biofilm was also investigated. The results showed that the ratio remained constant through the 25 days of each experiment and for high organic loading rates. Based on the results of this research, a reduction, a reduction of start-up period of anaerobic fixed film reactors might be achieved by maintaining a high organic loading and a large concentration of anaerobic microorganisms in the mixed liquor during the start-up period.