Enhanced Biological Phosphate Removal

The presence of considerable amounts of P in wastewaters due to the run-off of fertilizers, and industrial and household discharges, is a major problem, because destructive blue algae blooms may develop in natural waters, where under normal conditions the Pi concentration is most often the limiting factor for algae growth (Godd and Bell, 1985). 

It is also important to understand how PolyP3 contained in common detergents is hydrolysed in the environment and what ways may improve its removal. The major factor contributing to PolyP3 degradation in wastewater was shown to be biological by nature, with the most likely mechanism being enzymatic hydrolysis (Halliwell et al., 2001). 

The literature data on EBPR are now very numerous. There are many detailed reviews, which summarize the data on technology, biochemistry, microbiology and molecular biology of this process (Kortstee et al., 1994 Van Loosdrecht et al., 1997 Mino et al., 1998 Bond and Rees, 1999 Kortstee and Van Veen, 1999 Ohtake et al., 1999 Kortstee et al., 

The Biochemistry of Inorganic Polyphosphates I. S. Kulaev, V. M. Vagabov and T. V. Kulakovskaya 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd ISBN 0-470-85810-9 

In EBPR processes, one of the problems is utilization of accumulated phosphate of the sludge. It has been discovered that nearly all PolyPs could be released from activated sludge simply by heating it to 70 °C for about 1 h (Kuroda et al, 2002). The chain lengths of the released PolyPs ranged from 100 to 200 P residues. The addition of CaCL precipitated 

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R. P. X. Hesselmann, C. Werlen, D. Hahn, J. R. van der Meer and A. J. B. Zehnder (1999). Enrichment, phylogenetic analysis and detection of a bacterium that performs enhanced biological phosphate removal in activated sludge. System. Appl. Microbiol., 22, 454-465. 

T. Mino (2000). Microbial selection of polyphosphate-accumulating bacteria in activated sludge wastewater treatment process for enhanced biological phosphate removal, Biochemistry (Moscow), 65, 541-549. 

EBPR (Enhanced Biological Phosphate Removal) 24, 183-186 EDTA 49, 80 elecrophoresis 31-33, 48 electron microscopy 54 embryos 44... 

Kawaharasaki, M. Kanagawa, T. Tanaka, H. Nakamura, K. Development and application of 16S rRNA-targeted oligonucleotide probe for detection of phosphate-accumulating bacterium, Microlunatus phosphovorus in an enhanced biological phosphorus removal process. Water Sci. Technol. 1998, 37, 481 84. 

J. Kato, K. Yamada, A. Muramatsu, Hardoyo and H. Ohtake (1993a). Genetic improvement of Escherichia coli for enhanced biological removal of phosphate from waste water. Appl. Environ. Microbiol., 59, 3744-3749. 

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