Microbial diversity reveals the partial denitrification-anammox process serves as a new pathway in the first mainstream anammox plant.

A full-scale sewage treatment plant in Xi'an city is discovered as the first mainstream anaerobic ammonia oxidation (anammox) treatment process in China. Whether its biological mechanism is the nitritation-anammox or partial denitrification (PD)-anammox brought violent controversy between two groups. As a third party, here we uncovered the mystery of the moving-bed biofilm reactor (MBBR) as a PD-anammox process by analyzing the diversity and phylogenetic investigation of communities by reconstruction of unobserved states (PICRUSt) of microbes in anoxic pond.

Autoclaved sludge as the ideal seed to culture anammox bacteria: Reactor performance and microbial community diversity.

Reducing activity of commensal bacteria in inocula may enhance anammox bacteria proliferation and realization of anammox process. Fast start-up of anammox process in an UASB reactor was successfully achieved by using autoclaved sludge (anaerobic granular sludge pretreated by autoclaving) and 0.3% active anammox sludge as inoculum.