The diversity of active microbial groups in an activated sludge process treating painting process wastewater

¹ Environmental Management Technology Research Group, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Jl. Ganesha 10 Bandung 40132, Indonesia
² Master’s Program of Environmental Engineering, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Jl. Ganesha 10 Bandung 40132, Indonesia
³ Department of Environmental Engineering Science, Gunma University, Kiryu, Gunma, 376-8515, Japan

^* Corresponding author: herto@ftsl.itb.ac.id

Abstract

Activated sludge process is one of the wastewater treatment method that is applied for many wastewater types including painting process wastewater of automotive industry. This wastewater is well-known to have high heavy metals concentration which could deteriorate water environment if appropriate performance of the wastewater treatment could not be achieved. In this study, we monitored microbial community diversity in a Painting Biological Treatment (PBT) system. We applied a combination of cultivation and genotypic biological methods based on 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis to identify the diversity of active microbial community. The results showed that active microbes that could grow in this activated sludge system were dominated by Gram-negative bacteria. Based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing analysis, it was revealed that their microbial diversity has close association with Bacterium strain E286, Isosphaera pallida, Lycinibacillus fusiformis, Microbacterium sp., Orchobactrum sp., Pseudomonas guariconensis, Pseudomonas sp. strain MR84, Pseudomonas sp. MC 54, Serpens sp., Stenotrophomonas acidaminiphila, and Xylella fastidiosa with similarity of 86 – 99%. This findings reflects that microbial community in a Painting Biological Treatment (PBT) system using activated sludge process could adapt with xenobiotics in the wastewater and has a wide range of diversity indicating a complex metabolism mechanism in the treatment process.