Development and fundamental investigations of innovative technologies for biological nutrient removal from abattoir wastewater Romain Lemaire To cite this version: Romain Lemaire. Development and fundamental investigations of innovative technologies for biological nutrient removal from abattoir wastewater. Life Sciences [q-bio]. Université Montpellier 2 (Sciences et Techniques); University of Queensland [Brisbane], 2007. English. tel-02822528 HAL Id: tel-02822528 https://hal.inrae.fr/tel-02822528 Submitted on 6 Jun 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. UNIVERSITE MONTPELLIER II SCIENCES et TECHNIQUES du LANGUEDOC UNIVERSITY of QUEENSLAND SCHOOL of ENGINEERING THESE Réalisée en cotutelle entre l’Université Montpellier II et The University of Queensland pour obtenir le grade de DOCTEUR de L'Université Montpellier II et DOCTOR of PHILOSOPHY of The University of Queensland Discipline : Génie des Procédés Ecole Doctorale : Science des Procédés - Science des Aliments Présentée et soutenue le 28 Septembre 2007 à The University of Queensland par Romain LEMAIRE ETUDES FONDAMENTALES ET DEVELOPPEMENT DE PROCEDES INNOVANTS POUR L’ELIMINATION BIOLOGIQUE DE L’AZOTE ET DU PHOSPHORE DANS DES EFFLUENTS D’ABATTOIR. Jury: Dr. Philip Bond, Président, Australie Dr. Nicolas Bernet, Directeur de Thèse, France Prof. Zhiguo Yuan, co-Directeur de Thèse, Australie Prof. Jürg Keller, Directeur adjoint de Thèse, Australie Dr. Mathieu Sperandio, Rapporteur, France Dr. David Barnes, Rapporteur, Australie DEVELOPMENT AND FUNDAMENTAL INVESTIGATIONS OF INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES FOR BIOLOGICAL NUTRIENT REMOVAL FROM ABATTOIR WASTEWATER. by Romain LEMAIRE Bachelor of Industrial and Environmental Processes Engineering Masters of Environmental and Water Processes Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Toulouse, France PhD conducted under a cotutelle de thèse agreement between The University of Queensland in Australia and l’Université de Montpellier II in France. Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Advanced Water Management Centre School of Engineering The University of Queensland, Australia & Laboratoire de Biotechnologie de l'Environnement Ecole Doctorale : Science des Procédés – Science des Aliments Université de Montpellier II, France July 2007 Declaration I declare that the work presented in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge and believe, original and my own work, except as acknowledged in the text, and that the material has not been submitted, in whole or in part, for a degree at this or any other institution. Romain Lemaire Ph. D. Candidate Prof. Zhiguo Yuan Principal Advisor i Acknowledgements I remembered coming across a PhD student when I was still an undergraduate student in France. I was asking him some questions about the way his PhD was going and he told me: “don’t worry too much about the subject of your PhD, what you really want is supervisors that are easy to talk to, timely with their comments and interested in your work”. I did not fully understand his advice at the time but I can ensure you that I do now. While I had the chance to work on a subject I was passionate about, my excellent relation with both my principal supervisors, Prof. Zhiguo Yuan and Dr. Nicolas Bernet, their strong commitments, their availability and their insightful comments were instrumental in directing my research and helping me achieve my goal. I would also like to thank my associate supervisor Prof. Jürg Keller for his contribution and his valuable expertise in the field. I should also mention that, as the director of AWMC, Jürg welcomed me in his centre for a year when I was still an undergraduate student 6 years ago. I have not left since then as AWMC has become a vibrant and renowned research centre a credit to Jürg’s effort and passion. I would also like to thank the Environmental Biotechnology CRC, a Cooperative Research Centre established and funded by the Australian Government together with industry and university partners. They financed my scholarship and my PhD research through Project P5. I had the chance to work with many people over the course of my PhD from whom I have learned a lot and also contributed to my work as detailed on page III. I greatly appreciate the opportunity to work with Dr. Rikke Meyer, Dr. Greg Crocetti, Prof. Linda Blackall, Rick Webb, Dr. Gulsum Yilmaz, Dr. Maite Pijuan, Dr. Adrian Oehmen, Dr. Raymond Zeng, Annelies Taske, Marcos Marcelino and all the other members of AWMC. My thanks also go to Dr. Beatrice Keller-Lehmann, Jianguang Li and Dr. Sandra Hall for their technical support and advice and to all the administration staff (Wendy, Jan and Chris) for their daily support and their patience especially with us, the overseas students. I would also like to specially thank all my family in France who have provided me with love and support throughout these years far from home as well as all the friends that I have made here in Australia during the last 6 years and those that I have back in France. Last but not least, I would like to thank my beautiful girlfriend Ruth who involuntarily became an expert on “granular sludge” and “biological nutrient removal” over the last three years! ii Statement of the Contribution by Others This thesis contains the reporting of some important contributions made by other researchers that I have worked with throughout the course of my PhD. These contributions are acknowledged as follow: • Dr. Gulsum Yilmaz, of the Advanced Water Management Centre (AWMC) worked closely with me on the Biological Nutrient Removal (BNR) project P5, funded by the Environmental Biotechnology CRC. The development of the strategy to maintain the activity of BNR biomass during long term starvation periods, described in Appendix C, was a joint effort. She also contributed to the bioreactor operation, maintenance, sample collection and batch test experiments reported in Appendix F. • Dr. Gregory Crocetti of AWMC performed the FISH quantification and analysis reported in Appendix D. He also contributed to the development of a novel microbial technique used to determine the distribution of different microbial population inside aerobic granules (described in Appendix E). • Dr. Rikke Meyer, formerly of AWMC, currently at the Department of Microbiology at Aarhus University, Denmark, constructed the N2O microsensors used in this thesis and assisted with the experimental work reported in Appendix D. • Ms Annelies Taske, formerly a student with the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Sciences, assisted with the N2O microsensor measurements reported in Appendix D. • Mr Marcos Marcelino, a visiting PhD student at AWMC for 4 months, developed and calibrated a model based on ASM2d and ran the simulations reported in Appendix B. • Dr. Raymond Zeng of AWMC contributed to some of the design and construction of bioreactors used in this thesis. • Dr. Adrian Oehmen, formerly of AWMC, currently at the Chemistry Department of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal, worked closely with me in the lab for the first 4 months of my PhD thesis and contributed to some of the bioreactor operation and maintenance reported in Appendix A. • Dr. Beatrice Keller-Lehmann of AWMC operated the FIA and GC for the analysis of phosphate, ammonia, nitrate/nitrite, VFA, PHA and glycogen. Jianguang Li of AWMC assisted with operation of the FIA. Graham Kerven of the School of Land, Crop and Food Sciences conducted the ICP-AES ion analysis. • Mr Rick Webb of the Centre of Microscopy and Microanalysis (CMM) assisted with the sample preparation for the observation of aerobic granules with scanning electron microscope and conducted the transmission electron microscopy analysis reported in Appendix G. iii List of Publications and Presentations Journal publications forming chapters of the thesis, with author’s contribution: • Lemaire R., Yuan Z., Bernet N., Yilmaz G. and Keller J. submitted. A Sequencing Batch Reactor System for High-Level Biological Nitrogen and Phosphorus Removal from Abattoir Wastewater. Chemosphere. Author’s Contribution: All of the experimental study and analysis of the results. Writing of the paper, with contributions from the other authors. • Lemaire R., Marcelino M. and Yuan Z. submitted. Achieving the Nitrite Pathway Using Aeration Phase Length Control and Step-feed in a SBR Removing Nutrients from Abattoir Wastewater. Biotechnology and Bioengineering. Author’s Contribution: All of the experimental study and analysis of the results. Writing of the paper, with contributions from the other authors. • Yilmaz G., Lemaire R., Keller J. and Yuan Z. (2007). Effectiveness of an Alternating Aerobic, Anoxic/Anaerobic Strategy for Maintaining Biomass Activity of BNR Sludge during Long-term Starvation. Water Research, 41(12) 2590-2598. Author’s Contribution: Reactor-based experimental study (jointly with G. Yilmaz) and analysis of the results (assisted by G. Yilmaz). Writing of the paper, with contributions from the other authors. • Lemaire R., Meyer R., Taske A., Crocetti G.,