On anammox activity at low temperature: Effect of ladderane composition and process conditions

Vojtěch Kouba*, Kamila Hůrková, Klára Navrátilová, Dana Kok, Andrea Benáková, Michele Laureni, Patricie Vodičková, Mark C.M. van Loosdrecht, David Gregory Weissbrodt, More Authors

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)
14 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The application of partial nitritation-anammox (PN/A) under mainstream conditions can enable substantial cost savings at wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), but how process conditions and cell physiology affect anammox performance at psychrophilic temperatures below 15 °C remains poorly understood. We tested 14 anammox communities, including 8 from globally-installed PN/A processes, for (i) specific activity at 10–30 °C, (ii) composition of membrane lipids, and (iii) microbial community structure. We observed that membrane composition and cultivation temperature were closely related to the activity of anammox biomasses. The size of ladderane lipids and the content of bacteriohopanoids were key physiological components related to anammox performance at low temperatures. We also indicate that the adaptation of mesophilic cultures to psychrophilic regime necessitates months, but in some cases can take up to 5 years. Interestingly, biomass enriched in the marine genus “Candidatus Scalindua” displayed outstanding potential for nitrogen removal from cold streams. Collectively, our comprehensive study provides essential knowledge of cold adaptation mechanism, will enable more accurate modelling and suggests highly promising target anammox genera for inoculation and set-up of anammox reactors, in particular for mainstream WWTPs.

Original languageEnglish
Article number136712
Number of pages11
JournalChemical Engineering Journal
Volume445
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Bibliographical note

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Keywords

  • Activation energy
  • Adaptation to low temperature
  • Anaerobic ammonium oxidation
  • Anammox activity
  • Anammox genus
  • Ladderane phospholipid

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