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Anaerobic methane oxidation processes in wastewater management, as sustainable applications against climate change

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MICROWATER (Anaerobic methane oxidation processes in wastewater management, as sustainable applications against climate change)

Reporting period: 2020-11-01 to 2023-10-31

Microorganisms control the fluxes of geochemical cycles, and anaerobic microbial processes are recently discovered with new implications on relevant fluxes of nitrogen and carbon in human-influenced ecosystems. Wastewater treatment as a model of a heavily human-influenced ecosystem and sewage transport systems are a source of pollution that have been overlooked for a long time, large amounts of uncharacterized and uncontrolled GHG emissions are released to the atmosphere contributing to climate change.

This project will investigate the microbial eco-physiology involved in the fluxes of harmful emissions from sewage transport and treatment systems (i.e. ammonia, methane, nitrate, nitrite, nitrous oxide, and sulfide). Sewage transport and wastewater treatment systems offer optimal conditions for key anaerobic microbial processes, leading to harmful emissions to occur. Several studies have measured fugitive CH4 and N2O emissions from sewer networks, which represent a major source of GHG (9-12). The understanding of the microbial mechanisms that originate these negative emissions, and the microbial interactions that control their fluxes; are critical to create integrated and sustainable treatment technologies.

A special applied focus is given to the characterization of current emission profiles, and the microbial potential to control such emissions and prevent their release into the environment. Microorganisms that oxidize methane using nitrate and/or nitrite have the potential to revolutionize the current challenges in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in wastewater transport and sewage treatment. For that to happen, the understanding of the intricate microbial ecophysiology in full-scale engineered sewage systems is of extreme importance.


In this project, we apply state-of-the-art omics, modern bio-reactor technology, and use current real treatment systems as models to unravel further their potential. Ultimately, this project will:
Highlight new directions to existing challenges in sewage treatment and current treatment technologies.
Have big impact in the field, considering that any outcomes and deliverables of this project will be a great output to a new field, with lack of physiological data to complement engineering developments any eco-physiology knowledge is a significant contribution.
Contribute to the knowledge on microbial processes to solve methane emissions in sewage treatments.
To characterize emissions in sewage facilities and the anaerobic microbial processes of interest.
To identify environmental and engineered parameters governing these emissions in sewage facilities.
To relate to the current regulatory framework on GHG from the sample points.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic impacting scientific activities at the host institution, the work has been properly adjusted as part of the risk management towards the investigation of current state of the art situation around methane emissions and microbial ecophysiology relevant to the project.
The result: a scientific review publication accepted in the first 5 months of the project and published at Frontiers in Microbiology (see publications).

Next, a book chapter is in preparation to cover the current and future directions of nutrient recovery utilizing methanotrophic biorefineries for the creation of value from wastewater. This second product will be ready in the second half of the first year.
Societal implications:
This project through the elaboration of scientific and technical reviews on resource recovery, bottlenecks on GHG emission estimation from sewage and the relevance of methanotrophic microorganisms in climate change will have beneficial effects for the society in the following ways:

1. Important literature will be produced connecting fundamental scientific aspects of methanotrophic microorganisms to the mitigation of GHG emissions, contributing to the efforts to understand and combat climate change.
2. With the contribution to the emerging trend of circular economy, resource recovery from waste, this project will compliment the current understanding of ways to incorporate biotechnological applications for proper water and waste management and the sustainable development goals involving water quality and responsible utilization of resources.
MICROWATER: methane microbiology research through bioreactor and microbial ecophysiology