Formation of granules and Methanosaeta fibres in an anaerobic migrating blanket reactor (AMBR)

It has generally been accepted that the formation of granules in anaerobic wastewater treatment systems requires a hydraulic upflow pattern. To evaluate this hypothesis, we operated an anaerobic migrating blanket reactor (AMBR) without a hydraulic upflow pattern, using a synthetic wastewater containing acetate, propionate, butyrate and sucrose. We provided conditions amenable to the formation of granules by operating the system with a moderate hydraulic selection pressure, which in this system was not the result of a hydraulic upflow pattern, but was provided by migration of biomass and intermittent mechanical mixing. Granules were first noticed after 2 months of operation, and it took another 2 months for a mature granular blanket to develop. Besides granules, approximate to 1-cm-long Methanosaeta fibres developed and, after 6 months of operation, 30% of biomass consisted of these fibres. Quantitative membrane hybridization showed that almost all the total 16S rRNA extracted from fibres consisted of 16S rRNA from Methanosaeta concilii. This finding indicates that it was possible to develop pockets consisting almost entirely of an organism with a very limited substrate utilization spectrum (only acetate) in a system that was fed a synthetic wastewater containing acetate, propionate, butyrate and sucrose and that is known for its ability to develop biomass with a complex microbial community structure.