Immobilization of anaerobic ammonium oxidizing bacteria has been studied to enhance the biomass retention of the slowly growing bacteria and the process stability. The purpose of this study was to compare the nitrogen removal efficiency of granular and immobilized anammox bacteria with poly vinyl alcohol and alginate. The specific anammox activity of the granular, homoginized and immobilized anammox bacteria were 0.016±0.0002 gN/gVSS/d, 0.011±0.001 gN/gVSS/d and 0.007±0.0005 gN/gVSS/d, respectively. Although the activity decreased to 43.7 % of the original one due to low pH and O2 exposure during the homogination and the immobilization, it was rapidly recovered within 7 days in the following continuous culture. When synthetic T-N concentrations of 100, 200, 400, 800 mg/L were fed, the immobilized anammox bacteria showed higher nitrogen removal efficiencies at all operational conditions than those of granular anammox bacteria. When the sludge retention time was shorten below 30.7 days and the reject water was fed, the nitrite removal efficiency of the granular anammox bacteria dropped to 8 % of the initial value, while that of the immobilized anammox bacteria was maintained over 95 % of the initial one. The immobilization with poly vinyl alcohol and alginate would be a feasible method to improve the performance and stability of the anammox process.

This study investigated microbial communities and their diversity in a full-scale mesophilic anaerobic digester treating sewage sludge. Influent sewage sludge and anaerobic digester samples collected from a wastewater treatment plant in Busan were analyzed using high-throughput sequencing. It was found that the microbial community structure and diversity in the anaerobic digester could be affected by inoculation effect with influent sewage sludge. Nevertheless, distinct microbial communities were identified as the dominant microbial communities in the anaerobic digester. Twelve genera were identified as abundant bacterial communities, which included several groups of syntrophic bacteria communities, such as Candidatus Cloacimonas, Cloacimonadaceae W5, Smithella, which are (potential) syntrophic-propionate-oxidizing bacteria and Mesotoga and Thermovigra, which are (potential) syntrophic-acetate-oxidizing bacteria. Lentimicrobium, the most abundant genus in the anaerobic digester, may contribute to the decomposition of carbohydrates and the production of volatile fatty acids during the anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge. Of the methanogens identified, Methanollinea, Candidatus Methanofastidiosum, Methanospirillum, and Methanoculleus were the dominant hydrogenotrophic methanogens, and Methanosaeta was the dominant aceticlastic methanogens. The findings may be used as a reference for developing microbial indicators to evaluate the process stability and process efficiency of the anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge.