Chlorobenzenes are reductively dechlorinated by anaerobic bacterial cultures obtained from sediments and sludge. Recently a strain was isolated that couples reductive dechlorination of chlorobenzenes with energy conservation. The results reviewed in this article suggest that additional anaerobic bacteria, thriving by dehalogenation of chlorobenzenes or chlorobiphenylic compounds, can be isolated.

The main objective of this work was anaerobic digestion of maize grains and maize silage and biogas production from these crops. Maize grains were treated using one-stage and two-stage anaerobic techniques; using hydrolysis and acidification as the first stage and methanogenesis as the second stage. Processing nonacidified maize grains in an anaerobic reactor is more stable, though the anaerobi...

Endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs), such as estrogen, are known to be present in the aquatic environment at concentrations that negatively affect fish and other wildlife. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are major contributors of EDCs into the environment. EDCs are released via effluent discharge and land application of biosolids. Estrogen removal in WWTPs has been studied in the aqueous ...

We determined the concentrations of 2-methylisoborneol (2-MIB) and geosmin in final effluent from wastewater treatment plants Kyoto City, Japan, investigating variations during treatment. The 2-MIB were 5.1–29.8 3.9–13.9 ng/L, respectively. Geosmin primary higher than those influent. concentration increased reactors, while that decreased. anaerobic-anoxic-oxic step-feed biological nitrogen remo...

Errors are usually made in the quantification of biogas from lab scale anaerobic digestion experiments. This paper deals with the application of a manometric transducer associated with a pressure feedback control system to the estimation of the biogas produced from an anaerobic fermentation of primary sludge. The estimation procedure is reliable and convenient for on-line monitoring of gas prod...

Urban sludge produced on wastewater treatment plants are often contaminated by organic pollutants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). Their removal under methanogenic conditions was already reported, but the factors influencing this removal remain unclear. Here, we determined the influence of microbial communities on PAH removal under controlled physico-chemical conditions. Twelve m...

we evaluated the efficacy of a full-scale combined biophysicochemical system for treatingmolasses-based bioethanol wastewater in terms of organic substances, nutrient, and dark brown color removal. the main organic removal unit, i.e., the upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (uasb) reactor, achieved 80.7% removal and 4.3 nm3 methane production per cubic meter of wastewater with a hydraulic retention...

The unbalanced nutrients of algal sludge (low C/N ratio) were regarded as an important limitation factor to anaerobic digestion process. Adding high carbon content of waste paper in algal sludge feedstock to have a balanced C/N ratio was undertaken in this study. The results showed adding 50% (based on volatile solid) of waste paper in algal sludge feedstock increased the methane production rat...