Pilot-scale study on nitrogen and aromatic compounds removal in printing and dyeing wastewater by reinforced hydrolysis-denitrification coupling process and its microbial community analysis

Aiming to efficiently dispose printing and dyeing wastewater with high organic nitrogen and aromatic compounds, but low carbon source quality, the reinforced anaerobic hydrolysis-denitrification coupling process, based on improved UASB reactors and segregated collection-disposition strategy, was designed and applied at the pilot scale. Results showed that the coupling process displayed efficient removal for these two kinds of pollutants (nitrogen and aromatics), since the concentration of NH3-N (shortened as rho (NH3-N)) < 8 mg/L, rho (TN) < 15 mg/L with long-term stability for the effluent, and both species and abundances of aromatics reduced greatly by UASBs according to GC-MS. Microbial community analysis by PCR-DGGE showed that Bacteroidetes and Alphaproteobacteria were the dominant communities in the bioreactors and some kinds of VFAs-producing, denitrifying and aromatic ring opening microorganisms were discovered. Further, the nirK and bcrA genes quantification also indicated the coupling process owned outstanding denitrification and aromatic compound-degrading potential, which demonstrates that the coupling process owns admirable applicability for this kind of wastewater treatment.