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Harnessing the microbiomes of water treatment and distribution for cleaner water

Författare

Summary, in Swedish

Many water treatment processes used to improve the quality of drinking- and wastewater directly or indirectly affect, or are affected by, the activity of microbes. These activities can improve water quality, presenting sustainable alternatives to mechanical or chemical processes. As water is distributed, it is also changed by microbes. Harnessing the potential of microbes to improve water quality requires an understanding of how microbes interact with each other and water quality parameters. This thesis presents a conceptual understanding of how microbiomes in water treatment and distribution systems can be altered to optimize water quality, with examples from drinking- and wastewater contexts.

Microbial communities adapt to their environmental conditions. Thus, engineering interventions altering environmental conditions change the resident microbial communities. Ozonation of the influent to a slow sand filter for drinking water treatment created a less diverse microbial community, that was more adapted for the metabolism of small organic compounds generated by the ozone. Similarly, the microbial communities of a drinking water distribution system were altered by the removal of the disinfectant monochloramine, which is a source of energy for nitrifying bacteria. Several waves of succession followed the removal of monochloramine, resulting from the collapse of the nitrifying community.

Microbes can also shape their local environments. In a wastewater partial nitritation-anammox bioreactor the creation of anaerobic biofilm microenvironments supporting anammox bacteria required >100 days of aerobic activity. The ability of microbes to alter their local environment was harnessed by the successful inoculation of a full-scale slow sand filter, where inoculating prokaryotes composed >50% of the prokaryotic community several months after construction. The inoculation also appeared to have transferred eukaryotic food-chains, as putative fungal parasites of phylum Rozellomycota were present in the inoculated filter.

Mechanistic models provide detailed insights into the relationships between microbes and water quality. A mechanistic model of a slow sand filter for drinking water with a simplified microbial community was constructed. To produce more detailed models in the future, important microbes to consider can be identified by statistical modelling.

Finally, this thesis provides a theoretical roadmap for how a truly representative in silico slow sand filter can be generated, based on metabolic models of increasing complexity. This would provide unprecedented insights into a globally applied and sustainable treatment method, and a foundation for future models of other biofilters, and natural environments.

Avdelning/ar

Publiceringsår

2025-01-14

Språk

Engelska

Dokumenttyp

Doktorsavhandling

Förlag

Division of Biotechnology, Lund University

Ämne

  • Water Treatment

Aktiv

Published

Handledare

ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt

  • ISBN: 978-91-8096-091-5
  • ISBN: 978-91-8096-090-8

Försvarsdatum

7 februari 2025

Försvarstid

09:00

Försvarsplats

Lecture Hall KC:B, Kemicentrum, Naturvetarvägen 22, Faculty of Engineering LTH, Lund University, Lund.

Opponent

  • Katherine McMahon (Prof.)