Achieving Discharge Limits in Single-Stage Domestic Wastewater Treatment by Combining Urban Waste Sources and Phototrophic Mixed Cultures

Abstract

This work shows the potential of a new way of co-treatment of domestic wastewater (DWW) and a liquid stream coming from the thermal hydrolysis of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) mediated by a mixed culture of purple phototrophic bacteria (PPB) capable of assimilating carbon and nutrients from the medium. The biological system is an open single-step process operated under microaerophilic conditions at an oxidative reduction potential (ORP) p-values (20% of 16S rRNA gene copies after 49 d of operation. These results open the door to scaling up the process in open photobioreactors capable of treating urban wastewater and municipal solid waste in a single stage and under microaerophilic conditions by controlling the ORP of the system.

Keywords

• purple phototrophic bacteria
• photo-biorefineries
• domestic wastewater treatment
• resource recovery
• CSTR photobioreactors
• membrane photobioreactors