BAAGS

"Bacterial alginate: isolation, fine structure characterization and role in aerobic granular sludge formation"

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Aerobic sludge granulation is a promising innovative technology with the potential to be an alternative to the activated sludge process. It allows running a wastewater treatment plant with 30% less energy input, and requiring 75% less space combining with significant lower investment costs. Aerobic granules’ stability is the main concern of this process. It is strongly connected with the property of exopolysaccharides, particularly the bacterial alginates, which have been recently shown to be more than 10% of aerobic granules’ organic carbon content. Determining their function based on clearly defined analytical methods is significant for bringing this technology into practice. The proposed research aims at establishing and utilizing integrated analytical methods for looking into functional exopolysaccharides and their fine structures, and elucidating its role in aerobic granular sludge formation and stability based on their structure-function relationship. Bacterial alginates will be isolated both from the lab-scale and pilot-scale reactors. Their properties as block fraction, fine chemical structures, monomer ratio, molecular weight, acetylation degree, and etc. will be studied by chemical and advanced instrumental analysis as UV-visible, FT-IR, MALDI-TOF MS, NMR, MS-GC and etc. A qualitative and quantitative correlation between bacterial alginates’ property alteration and aerobic granular sludge formation and stability will be presented. Methods established will greatly facilitate exopolysaccharides research in aerobic granular sludge area; knowledge obtained will provide insight on exopolysaccharides function both in aerobic granules and normal biofilms. This research will accelerate aerobic sludge granulation technology leadership by EU; enhance EU scientific excellence in exopolysaccharides advanced characterization, provide researcher an advanced level of training, and increase European Research Area’s attractiveness to researchers all over the world.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Researchers have enriched our understanding of the biopolymers in sludge granules. These biopolymers are produced by bacteria during wastewater treatment.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Aerobic sludge granulation is a promising alternative to normal bacterial wastewater treatment because it uses less energy and decreases the bioreactor space required. These granules are actually complex bacterial communities that are held together by polymers that have similar properties with alginates. These polymers remain under-studied.

The EU-funded BAAGS project investigated the alginates found in aerobic sludge granules to better understand their structure and function. The project collected samples of aerobic sludge granules from laboratory and pilot bioreactors. Using a number of advanced analytical techniques, researchers studied the physical and chemical properties of the alginate-like polymers they contained.

BAAGS successfully characterised a number of different alginate-like polymers, and noted that these polymers are responsible for granule formation and stability. Furthermore, they found that the presence of these polymers allowed granules to accumulate minerals and other chemicals.

Lastly, BAAGS developed a method to measure the strength of aerobic sludge granules and to detect accumulation of apatite, a mineral commonly produced by microbial ecosystems. Project results will further the use of sludge granulation in wastewater treatment in the future.