Contribution of Comammox Process to Sustainable Wastewater Treatment

Start year: 2022

Summary: This is regarding the transfer of DP22 (Lead CI Bruce Ni, who has moved to UNSW). See RES22/11 for original details. This project aims to understand the versatility, activity and physiological features of comammox bacteria, the newly-discovered complete nitrifiers, in Australian wastewater treatment systems, and to model and evaluate their contributions to biological nitrogen removal process. Nitrogen transformations are crucial microbial processes in the wastewater treatment ecosystems, with nitrification largely responsible for ammonium oxidation but comammox previously overlooked. The expected outcomes will develop new knowledge on the comammox process and provide novel insight and technological solution to refine strategies to manipulate nitrification processes for achieving improved biological nitrogen removal and sustainable wastewater management.