Novel Simultaneous Removal of Ammonium and Sulfate by Isolated Bacillus cereus Strain from Sewage Treatment Plant

Sulfate-reducing anaerobic ammonium oxidation (SRAO) is one of the unique biochemical reactions involving the use of ammonium as the electron donor and sulfate as the electron acceptor. Bacillus cereus (named SUD-1) was isolated from industrial wastewater under an optimized anaerobic acclimation procedure for 14 days which is capable to be mixotrophic. The isolate was identified using the 16 S rRNA sequencing as Bacillus cereus FDAARGOS_798 with optimum growth pH and temperature of 7 and 30 ± 2 °C, respectively. The SUD-1 reached the maximum removal efficiency of 67% (NH+4) and 80% (SO2−4) in a closed anaerobic batch for 10 days. Its optimum pH, temperature, isolate volume, and (NH4)2SO4 substrate concentration were 8, 30 °C, 5% (v/v), and 0.1 g/L, respectively. The result has shown the pronounced performance of SUD-1 strain as a novel biomaterial to simultaneously remove ammonium and sulfate which is an unconventional reaction and thus indicates a good potential for application in real wastewater treatment plants.