Inhibition factors in biofilm N removal systems treating wastes generated by amine based CO2 capture

The submitted dataset consists of pyrosequenced barcoded v4 16S rDNA amplicons representing bacterial communities associated with bioreactors for biological nitrogen removal for treating wastes generated by amine based CO2 capture. In order to identify limiting factors for successful up-scaling, we compared the nitrifying activity of moving bed biofilm reactors (MBBR) with or without chronic exposure to organic loading in the form of acetate. Three moving bed biofilm reactors (MBBR) were operated for 48 days in continuous mode. Reactor 1 was run as a control to confirm process stability, while chronic exposure to organic loading was tested in duplicate (Reactor 2 and 3) in order to verify reproducibility. To study inhibition and the effect on the relative abundance of nitrifying bacteria within the nitrifying biofilm over time, the bacterial communities were characterized by pyrosequencing of 16S rDNA amplicons. The sequence data were used for determining the relative abundance of ammonia and nitrite oxidizing bacteria.