Microbial community dynamics in anaerobic digesters treating conventional and vacuum toilet flushed blackwater

Decentralized wastewater treatment represents a promising sustainable option for future wastewater management. Blackwater collected from toilets contains high concentrations of organic matter, ideal for energy recovery using anaerobic digestion. Up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactors treating conventional toilet (CT, 9 L water per flush) and vacuum toilet (VT, 1 L water per flush) blackwater with increments of loadings were successfully operated to steady state in three phases. The organic loading rates were maintained at comparable levels between the two reactors. The methanisation rates were 0.23-0.29 and 0.41-0.48 gCH₄-COD/gfeedCOD in the CT and VT reactors, and the COD removal rates were 72% and 89%, respectively. The enriched microbial consortia and the community dynamics under different loading phases were compared. The rank abundance distributions and alpha-diversity showed that archaeal communities were predominated by mono-enrichments in both CT and VT reactors, while bacterial communities showed lower diversity in the VT reactor. Through principal coordinates analysis (beta-diversity), clear divergences of archaeal and bacterial communities between the CT and VT reactors were revealed, and the archaeal community developed at a slower rate than the bacterial community. The enriched archaea were hydrogenotrophic methanogens, Methanolinea in the CT reactor (56.6%), and Methanogenium in the VT reactor (62.3%). The enriched bacteria were Porphyromonadaceae in both CT (15.9%) and VT (13.4%) reactors, sulfate-reducing bacteria in the CT reactor, and Fibrobacteraceae in the VT reactor (13.8%). Links between enriched consortia and ammonia stress were discussed. Isotope fraction analysis of the biogas showed a slight shift from acetoclastic methanogenesis to hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis. A closer look into the predicted metagenomic functional profiles showed agreeing results, where hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis and fhs gene abundances were higher in the VT reactor. We demonstrated that different blackwater types enriched different microbial consortia, probably due to ammonia concentrations and sulfate loadings, which should be taken into consideration for practical applications.