Microbial community structure and functional characteristics of a membrane bioreactor process for rural wastewater treatment

The inflow quality and quantity of rural wastewater fluctuates greatly. This is due to the fact that a variety of factories was built in some areas of the countryside, leading to high concentrations of organic pollutants in the wastewater. Membrane bioreactors (MBRs) have been widely used in the field of wastewater treatment because of their small footprint and high treatment efficiency. In this research, ten rural wastewater treatment sites that employ the MBR process were studied in the Chengyang District of Qingdao City, China. Specifically, MBRs treating actual domestic wastewater were examined using high-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing to explore the microbial community composition and perform function prediction, as well as reveal intergroup differences and environmental impact factors. Additionally, the pollutant removal performance of the MBRs was evaluated over their initial 22 months of operation.