Biological risks of bioaerosols emitted from wastewater treatment processes have attracted wide attention in the recent years. However, the culture-based analysis method has been mostly adopted for detecting the bacterial community in bioaerosols, which may result in the underestimation of total microorganism concentration as not all microorganisms are cultivable. In this study, oligonucleotide fingerprinting of 16S rRNA genes was applied to reveal the composition and structure of the bacterial community in bioaerosols from an Orbal oxidation ditch in a Beijing wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). Bioaerosols were collected at different distances from the aerosol source, rotating brushes, and the sampling height was 1.5 m which is the common respiratory height of a human being. The bacterial communities of bioaerosols were diverse, and the lowest bacterial diversity was found at the sampling site just after the rotating brush rotating brush. A large proportion of bacteria in bioaerosols were affiliated with Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes. Numerous bacteria present in the bioaerosols also emerged in water, indicating that the bacterial community in the bioaerosols was related to that of the aerosols' sources. The forced aeration of rotating brushes brought about observably distinct bacterial communities between sampling sites situated before and after the rotating brush. Isolation sources of closest relatives in bioaerosols clone libraries were associated with the aqueous environment in the WWTP. Common potential pathogens in bioaerosols as well as those not reported in previous research were also analyzed in this study. Measures should be adopted to reduce the emission of bioaerosols and prevent their exposure to workers.
Anaerobic sludge from a sewage treatment plant was used to acclimatize microbial colonies capable of anaerobic oxidation of methane(AOM) coupled to sulfate reduction. Clone libraries and fluorescence in situ hybridization were used to investigate the microbial population.Sulfate-reducing bacteria(SRB)(e.g., Desulfotomaculum arcticum and Desulfobulbus propionicus)and anaerobic methanotrophic archaea(ANME)(e.g., Methanosaeta sp. and Methanolinea sp.)coexisted in the enrichment. The archaeal and bacterial cells were randomly or evenly distributed throughout the consortia. Accompanied by sulfate reduction, methane was oxidized anaerobically by the consortia of methane-oxidizing archaea and SRB. Moreover, CH_4 and SO_4^(2-) were consumed by methanotrophs and sulfate reducers with CO_2 and H_2S as products. The H_3CSH produced by methanotrophy was an intermediate product during the process. The methanotrophic enrichment was inoculated in a down-flow biofilter for the treatment of methane and H_2S from a landfill site. On average, 93.33% of H_2S and 10.71% of methane was successfully reduced in the biofilter. This study tries to provide effective method for the synergistic treatment of waste gas containing sulfur compounds and CH_4.
