Nutrient Removal: Using DNA to Monitor and Troubleshoot BNR

Monitoring and troubleshooting of wastewater treatment processes has been limited by our ability to see into the microbial world of these systems. The primary tool at our disposal is a simple microscope, not unlike microscopes that have been around for more than one hundred years. The microscope is able to give us some very quick information (i.e. filaments, pin floc, protozoans, etc) but doesn’t provide precise identification or quantification of beneficial or problem bacteria. Fortunately, recent advances in DNA sequencing now allow us to sequence DNA from samples of biomass in wastewater treatment plants and identify and quantify nearly all the microbes in the system. This allows us to provide precise identification and quantification of all the microbes important to the system. Now that we finally can “look inside the black box” we can start to solve problems and optimize the system.