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    Evolution of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) in aerobic sludge granulation: Composition, adherence and viscoelastic properties

    Year: 2021

    Journal: Chemosphere, Volume 262, JAN

    Authors: Shi, Yijing; Liu, Yang

    Organizations: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Industrial Research Chair (IRC) Program in Sustainable UrbanWater Development through the EPCOR Water Services, EPCOR Drainage Operation, and Alberta Innovates; Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Future Water Services; National Natural Science Foundation of China [21806044]; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Chemical Pollution and Environmental Safety [2019B030301008]

    Keywords: Aerobic sludge granulation; Extracellular polymeric substances; Quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring; Microbial functional genes; Adhesive and viscoelastic properties

    Aerobic granular sludge (AGS) is a promising wastewater treatment innovation, but its instability hinders its broader applications. Understanding the granulation process is vital to address this issue. Extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) play an essential role in sludge granulation. However, one crucial aspect of EPS, the adhesive and viscoelastic properties, has been neglected in AGS studies. In this study, we set up two reactors fed with COD/N ratios of 100: 5 (R1) and 100: 10 (R2) for comparison, to investigate the adhesive and viscoelastic properties of sludge EPS during the sludge granulation. We found that R2 showed a more rapid sludge granulation with more stable granules formed, contained a higher abundance of amoA gene, and had a higher production of polysaccharides than R1. We also found a sharp decrease in polysaccharide production and beta-sheets abundance accompanied by granule size decrease in R1 on Day 80, indicating their essential roles in sludge granulation and granule stability. QCM-D (quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring) results showed that EPS became less adhesive and inclined to form unstable layers on the mineral surfaces along with the sludge granulation process. In contrast, they showed the opposite behavior and became more adhesive on the PVDF sensors. Our results suggested that higher polysaccharides, a higher beta-sheets band in proteins, and lower mineral surface-adhesive and viscoelastic properties benefited the aerobic sludge granulation process and the granule maintenance. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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