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wateronline.com ■ Water Online The Magazine excessive dosage of the external substrate, ensuring that it is consumed during the anaerobic phase to maximize its effect, minimizing the overall costs. The controlled addition of glyc- erol for achieving a stable effluent concentration has been tested recently in our A 2 /O pilot plant, obtaining very good results for keeping a proper controlled P concentration in the effluent, despite several disturbances applied to increase anaerobic nitrate inlet (Guerrero, 2014). The experimental results demonstrate that glycerol could be used as an external carbon source for the biological removal of P in wastewater with low organic content. This process can be performed whenever the duration of the anaerobic phase or anaerobic residence time in a continuous reactor is sufficiently high to allow glycerol fermentation and VFA uptake. Additionally, the added organic material can also be used by denitrifying microorganisms to remove nitrate recycled to the anaerobic reactor. This dual effect provides improved stability of the EBPR process. References Chanona J.; Ribes J.; Seco A.; Ferrer J.; 2006. Optimum design and operation of primary sludge fermentation schemes for volatile fatty acids production, Water Res. 40(1), 53-60. Cho E.; Molof A.H.; 2004. Effect of sequentially combining methanol and acetic acid on the performance of biological nitrogen and phosphorus removal. J. Environ. Manage. 73, 183-187. Flowers, J.J.; He, S.; Yilmaz, S.; Noguera, D.R.; McMahon, K.D.; 2009. Denitrification capabilities of two biological phosphorus removal sludges dominated by different "Candidatus Accumulibacter" clades. Environ. Microbiol. Rep. 1(6), 583 - 588. Guerrero J.; Guisasola A.; Baeza J.A.; 2011. The nature of the carbon source rules the competition between PAO and denitrifiers in systems for simultaneous biological nitrogen and phosphorus removal. Water Res. 45(16), 4793-4802. Guerrero J.; Tayà C.; Guisasola A.; Baeza J.A.; 2012. Glycerol as a sole carbon source for enhanced biological phosphorus removal. Water Res. 46, 2983-2991. Guerrero J., 2014. Improving EBPR stability in WWTPs aiming at simultaneous carbon and nutrient removal: From modelling studies to experimental validation. PhD Thesis. Henze M.; van Loosdrecht M.; Ekama G.; Brjanovic D.; 2008. Biological Wastewater Treatment. IWA Publishing, London, ISM 1843391880. Moser-Engeler R.; Udert K.M.; Siegrist H.; 1998. Products from primary sludge fermentation and their suitability for nutrient removal. Water Sci. Technol. 38(1), 265-273. Saito, T.; Brdjanovic, D.; van Loosdrecht, M.C.M.; 2004. Effect of nitrite on phosphate uptake by phosphate accumulating organisms. Water Res. 38, 3760-3768. Van Niel, E.W.J.; Appeldoorn, K.J.; Zehnder, A.J.B.; Kortstee, G.J.J.; 1998. Inhibition of anaerobic phosphate release by nitric oxide in activated sludge. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 64, 2925-2930. 21 BNR 101: White Paper Dr. Albert Guisasola is a chemical engineer and Ph.D. in environmental engineering. His main research interest is not only to optimize wastewater treatment processes, but to convert wastewater into a resource of energy, nutrients, and bioplastics. Guisasola is studying advanced biological and bioelectrochemical systems for wastewater treatment. Dr. Javier Guerrero is a postdoc researcher in the department of chemical engineering at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He is also a member of the GENOCOV research group, and his main research topics are the improvement of biological nutrient removal in WWTPs by the implementation of novel and optimized control strategies. Dr. Juan A. Baeza has been an associate professor in the department of chemical engineering at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona since December 2004. He leads research on biological phosphorus removal from wastewaters in the GENOCOV research group.