Dynamics and composition of filamentous micro-organism communities in industrial water systems

Filamentous micro-organisms are an important group of bacteria in activated sludge. Excessive growth of these organisms results in poor settling of activated sludge in a process called bulking sludge, leading to poor effluent quality and high costs for the industry. Little is known about filamentous micro-organisms in industrial water systems and this severely limits the use of prevention strategies for sludge bulking. Specific identification, monitoring techniques and better understanding of the behaviour of these organisms is a first step towards improving waste water treatment process performance and the prevention of sludge bulking. A survey of the presence of filamentous bacteria in a large number of European waste water treatment plants (WWTPs) was carried out, within the scope of the EU-Dynafilm project. The survey revealed many new hitherto non-described filamentous micro-organisms revealing a large unknown biodiversity.