Biological phosphorus removal with different organic substrates in an anaerobic/aerobic sequencing batch reactor

Experimental work was carried out with a lab-scale SBR whose operation was divided into three runs: I run (glucose+acetate feed, 3' fill), II run (only glucose feed, 3' fill), m run (only glucose feed, 60' fill). The results show that the bacteria growing in alternating anaerobic/aerobic systems can remove organic substrates under anaerobic conditions even without using the hydrolysis of polyphosphates or the transformation of glycogen into poly-hydroxyalkanoates as the energy sources for the uptake and storage of substrate. However, in the case of acetate plus glucose feed EBPR can be steadily established with typical PP-bacteria like metabolism even if most of the COD removal takes place under not truly anaerobic conditions. Copyright (C) 1996 IAWQ.