Role of suspended solids on the co-precipitation of pathogenic indicators and antibiotic resistance genes with struvite from digested swine wastewater

Abstract

Struvite recovered from wastewater contains high concentration of fecal indicator bacteria (FIB), porcine adenoviruses (PAdV) and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), becoming potential resources of these microbial hazards. Understanding the precipitation behavior of pathogenic indicators and ARGs with suspended solids (SS) will provide the possible strategy for the control of co-precipitation. In this study, SS was divided into high-density SS (separated by centrifugation) and low-density SS (further separated by filtration), and the role of SS on the co-precipitation of FIB, PAdV and ARGs was investigated. The distribution analysis showed that 35.5–73.0% FIB, 79.6% PAdV and 64.5–94.8% ARGs existed in high-density SS, while the corresponding values were 26.9–64.4%, 11.7% and 3.5–24.3% in low-density SS. During struvite generation, 82.7−96.9% FIB, 75.5% PAdV and 56.3–86.5% ARGs were co-precipitated into struvite. High-density SS contributed 20.7−68.5% FIB, 63.9% PAdV and 38.7–87.2% ARGs co-precipitation, and the corresponding contribution of low-density SS was 31.4−79.2%, 3.9% and 6.2–54.7%. Moreover, the precipitated SS in struvite obviously decreased inactivation efficiency of FIB and ARGs in drying process. These results provide a potential way to control the co-precipitation and inactivation of FIB, PAdV and ARGs in struvite through removing high-density SS prior to struvite recovery.