Purple phototrophic bacteria for resource recovery from red meat processing wastewater

Purple phototrophic bacteria (PPB) are emerging technology that enables removal of organics, nitrogen and phosphorous from wastewater streams in a single treatment step by concentrating within biomass. The batch assessment of the treatability showed efficient COD, nitrogen and phosphorous removal while removal was assimilative with partioning from the liquid to the solid phase, enabling the recovery as protein-rich biomass. Alternatively, the biomass can be anaerobically digested but the economic feasibility would be reduced. The major findings of the batch tests are:

Combined wastewater entering primary treatment (such as dissolved air floatation) can be treated using PPB achieving 92% NH4-N removal and 25% PO4-P removal whereby TN and TP are preserved in the biomass. The portion of COD in the feed. Improved performance may be achieved through optimisation.
When combined wastewater was pre-filtered to remove particulates, PPB treatment resulted in 74% SCOD, 64% NH4-N and 73% PO4-P being removed from the wastewater and coverted to microbial protein. Improved performance may be achieved through optimisation.