ERC Pro­ject – GREENT

Hu­man ac­tivi­ties have se­ve­re im­pacts on the bio­lo­gi­cal car­bon and ni­tro­gen cy­cles. The most im­portant con­se­quen­ces of the­se are glo­bal war­ming and wa­ter pol­lu­ti­on. Was­te­wa­ter tre­at­ment tech­no­lo­gy, in par­ti­cu­lar ni­tro­gen re­mo­val sys­tems, im­pro­ved con­sider­ab­ly in the last de­ca­de. The ap­p­li­ca­ti­on of an­ae­ro­bic am­mo­ni­um oxi­di­zing (anam­m­ox) bac­te­ria in oxy­gen-li­mi­ted gra­nu­les has the po­ten­ti­al to turn was­te­wa­ter tre­at­ment plants into en­er­gy-ef­fi­ci­ent sys­tems with mi­ni­mal green­hou­se gas emis­si­ons of car­bon di­oxi­de, ni­trous oxi­de and me­tha­ne. Re­cent­ly, mi­cro­or­ga­nisms that coup­le the an­ae­ro­bic oxi­da­ti­on of me­tha­ne to de­ni­tri­fi­ca­ti­on were dis­co­ve­r­ed. An in­no­va­ti­ve in­te­gra­ti­on of the­se mi­cro­or­ga­nisms into par­ti­al ni­tri­ta­ti­on-anam­m­ox sys­tems for was­te­wa­ter tre­at­ment of­fers an ele­gant and ef­fi­ci­ent so­lu­ti­on to com­bat green­hou­se gas emis­si­ons from was­te­wa­ter tre­at­ment plants. The aim of the GREENT pro­ject is to de­ter­mi­ne ni­trous oxi­de emis­si­ons from par­ti­al ni­tri­ta­ti­on-anam­m­ox bio­re­ac­tors and the pa­ra­me­ters that go­vern the­se emis­si­ons, and to in­ves­ti­ga­te the re­s­pon­si­ble pa­thways in mole­cu­lar de­tail. Fur­ther­mo­re, I will ex­plo­re the fea­si­bi­li­ty of an in­no­va­ti­ve bio­re­ac­tor, which will re­mo­ve am­mo­ni­um and me­tha­ne si­mul­ta­neous­ly through anam­m­ox and an­ae­ro­bic me­tha­ne-oxi­di­zing mi­cro­or­ga­nisms. This ap­proach will turn the other­wi­se harm­ful me­tha­ne into a re­sour­ce for ef­fi­ci­ent ni­tro­gen re­mo­val. The­se fun­da­men­tal in­sights and tech­no­lo­gi­cal ad­van­ces will be achie­ved by a com­pli­men­ta­ry ar­ray of sta­te-of-the-art me­tho­do­lo­gy such as con­ti­nuous cul­turing, sta­ble iso­to­pe tra­c­ing and a com­bi­na­ti­on of -omics me­thods to­ge­ther with phy­sio­lo­gi­cal ex­pe­ri­ments and de­tai­led mea­su­re­ments at full-sca­le in­stal­la­ti­ons. The re­sults of this pro­po­sal will be of pa­ra­mount im­port­an­ce for the was­te­wa­ter tre­at­ment sec­tor, but also in­dis­pensa­ble for ma­the­ma­ti­cal mo­del­ling, life cy­cle as­sess­ment and un­der­stan­ding the eco­phy­sio­lo­gy of the in­vol­ved mi­cro­or­ga­nisms.