Publication Cover
Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part A
Toxic/Hazardous Substances and Environmental Engineering
Volume 48, 2013 - Issue 13
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An eco-friendly treatment of tannery wastewater using bioaugmentation with a novel microbial consortium

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Pages 1732-1739 | Received 12 Feb 2013, Published online: 15 Aug 2013
 

Abstract

A novel microbial consortium (BM-S-1) enriched from natural soils was successfully used to treat tannery wastewater from leather manufacturing industries in Korea on a pilot scale. The objective of this study was to determine whether augmentation with a novel microbial consortium BM-S-1could successfully treat the recalcitrant wastewater without chemical pre-treatment in a tannery wastewater treatment system. Chemical oxygen demand (COD), total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) were monitored for water quality. The microbial population dynamics were analyzed using pyrosequencing, and denitrifying bacteria were quantified using real-time PCR (RT-PCR). The removal efficiencies for COD, TN and TP were greater than 91%, 79%, and 90%, respectively. The dominant phyla in the buffering tank (B), primary aeration (PA), secondary aeration (SA) and sludge digestion tank (SD) were Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Planctomycetes and Deinococcus-Thermus. Cluster analysis based on the UniFrac distance of the species in the different stages showed that the PA is similar to the SA, whereas the B is similar to the SD. qPCR of the nosZ genes showed the highest abundance of denitrifiers in B, which was increased 734-fold compared to the influent (I). It was hypothesized that anaerobic denitrifiers and the diverse microbial community may play important roles in the biological treatment of tannery wastewater. This technology may also contribute to the full-scale treatment of industrial wastewater containing food processing wastewater and marine sediment with high organic content.

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant (No. 2011-0016521) from the Korean government (MEST). This study was also supported by the Business for Cooperative R&D between Industry, Academy, and Research Institute of the Korea Small and Medium Business Administration (Grant No. 00047293). Finally, this study was made possible by the efforts of the Manpower Development Program for Marine Energy, as part of the Ministry of Land, Transport, and Maritime Affairs (MLTM).

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