Taxonomic and functional variations in the microbial community during the upgrade process of a full-scale landfill leachate treatment plant – from conventional to partial nitrification-denitrification

Binbin Sheng, Depeng Wang, Xianrong Liu, Guangxing Yang, Wu Zeng, Yiqing Yang, Fangang Meng

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Front. Environ. Sci. Eng. ›› 2020, Vol. 14 ›› Issue (6) : 93. DOI: 10.1007/s11783-020-1272-7
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Taxonomic and functional variations in the microbial community during the upgrade process of a full-scale landfill leachate treatment plant – from conventional to partial nitrification-denitrification

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Highlights

• Upgrade process was investigated in a full-scale landfill leachate treatment plant.

• The optimization of DO can technically achieve the shift from CND to PND process.

• Nitrosomonas was mainly responsible for ammonium oxidation in PND system.

• An obviously enrichment of Thauera was found in the PND process.

• Enhanced metabolic potentials on organics was found during the process update.

Abstract

Because of the low access to biodegradable organic substances used for denitrification, the partial nitrification-denitrification process has been considered as a low-cost, sustainable alternative for landfill leachate treatment. In this study, the process upgrade from conventional to partial nitrification-denitrification was comprehensively investigated in a full-scale landfill leachate treatment plant (LLTP). The partial nitrification-denitrification system was successfully achieved through the optimizing dissolved oxygen and the external carbon source, with effluent nitrogen concentrations lower than 150 mg/L. Moreover, the upgrading process facilitated the enrichment of Nitrosomonas (abundance increased from 0.4% to 3.3%), which was also evidenced by increased abundance of amoA/B/C genes carried by Nitrosomonas. Although Nitrospira (accounting for 0.1%–0.6%) was found to stably exist in the reactor tank, considerable nitrite accumulation occurred in the reactor (reaching 98.8 mg/L), indicating high-efficiency of the partial nitrification process. Moreover, the abundance of Thauera, the dominant denitrifying bacteria responsible for nitrite reduction, gradually increased from 0.60% to 5.52% during the upgrade process. This process caused great changes in the microbial community, inducing continuous succession of heterotrophic bacteria accompanied by enhanced metabolic potentials toward organic substances. The results obtained in this study advanced our understanding of the operation of a partial nitrification-denitrification system and provided a technical case for the upgrade of currently existing full-scale LLTPs.

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Keywords

Landfill leachate / Process upgrade / Partial nitrification-denitrification / Bacterial community / Metagenomics

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Binbin Sheng, Depeng Wang, Xianrong Liu, Guangxing Yang, Wu Zeng, Yiqing Yang, Fangang Meng. Taxonomic and functional variations in the microbial community during the upgrade process of a full-scale landfill leachate treatment plant – from conventional to partial nitrification-denitrification. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng., 2020, 14(6): 93 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-020-1272-7

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2017YFE0114300), Special Fund for Science and Technology Innovation Strategy of Guangdong Province (No. 2018B020202), Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (No. 2018A030310246), and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21607177, 51622813 and 51808564) for financially supporting this study.

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-020-1272-7 and is accessible for authorized users.

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