Bioaugmentation to recover the negative impact caused by capsaicin in a sequence batch reactor

Capsaicin has strong antibacterial capability and can inhibit the activity of microbial dehydrogenase. This study discussed the impact of capsaicin on the biochemical wastewater treatment process. By using bioaugmentationt technology, the impact caused by capsaicin was estimated and repaired. The study found that influent with 100 mg L-1 capsaicin had the decreased removal rate of CODCr, ammonia nitrogen (NH4+-N) and total nitrogen (TN) in a conventional biochemical wastewater treatment system. The results of MiSeq high-throughput sequencing showed that capsaicin had reduced the Alpha diversity of the microbial community in the system, resulting in significant changes of the composition of the microbial community at phylum-level, class-level and genus-level. Bioaugmentation technique changed the composition of the microbial community at these three levels above significantly, and it improved the removal of CODCr, NH4+-N and TN on the biochemical treatment system eventually.