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Ammonium removal from high-salinity oilfield-produced water: assessing the microbial community dynamics at increasing salt concentrations

  • Environmental biotechnology
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Abstract

Water generated during oil exploration is chemically complex and contains high concentrations of ammonium and, in some cases, high salinity. The most common way to remove ammonium from effluent is a biological process, which can be performed by different routes and different groups of microorganisms. However, the presence of salts in the effluents could be an inhibiting factor for biological processes, interfering directly with treatment. This study aimed to evaluate changes in the profile of a microbial community involved in the process of ammonium removal when subjected to a gradual increase of salt (NaCl), in which the complete inhibition of the ammonium removal process occurred at 125 g L−1 NaCl. During the sludge acclimatization process, samples were collected and submitted to denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) and massive sequencing of the 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes. As the salt concentration increased in the reactor, a change in the microbial community was observed by the DGGE band profiles. As a result, there was a reduction in the presence of bacterial populations, and an increase in archaeal populations was found. The sequencing data suggested that ammonium removal in the reactor was carried out by different metabolic routes by autotrophic nitrifying bacteria, such as Nitrosococcus, Nitrosomonas, Nitrosovibrio, Nitrospira, and Nitrococcus; ammonium-oxidizing archaea Candidatus nitrosoarchaeum; ANAMMOX microorganisms, such as Candidatus brocadia, Candidatus kuenenia, and Candidatus scalindua; and microorganisms with the potential to be heterotrophic nitrifying, such as Paracoccus spp., Pseudomonas spp., Bacillus spp., Marinobacter sp., and Alcaligenes spp.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to PETROBRAS for the financial support and FAPEMIG, CNPq and CAPES for the scholarships grants.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa, Minas Gerais, Brazil

    Larissa Quartaroli

  2. Department of Microbiology, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa, Minas Gerais, Brazil

    Lívia C. Fidélis Silva, Helena Santiago Lima, Marliane de Cássia S. da Silva & Maria Catarina M. Kasuya

  3. Department of Forest Engineering, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa, Minas Gerais, Brazil

    Claudio Mudadu Silva

  4. Department of General Biology, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Vicosa, Minas Gerais, Brazil

    Sergio Oliveira de Paula

  5. Microbial Resources Division, Research Center for Chemistry, Biology and Agriculture (CPQBA), Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, SP, Brazil

    Valéria Maia de Oliveira

  6. Petrobras R&D Center (CENPES), Petrobras, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

    Maíra Paula de Sousa, Ana Paula R. Torres & Rodrigo Suhett Souza

  7. Chemical Engineering Program – COPPE, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

    João Paulo Bassin

  8. Department of Microbiology, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa, Minas Gerais, Brazil

    Cynthia Canêdo da Silva

  9. Laboratório de Genética Molecular de Bactérias, Peter Henry Rolfs, s/n, Campus Universitário, Viçosa, MG, 36570-900, Brazil

    Cynthia Canêdo da Silva

Authors
  1. Larissa Quartaroli
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  2. Lívia C. Fidélis Silva
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  3. Claudio Mudadu Silva
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  4. Helena Santiago Lima
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  5. Sergio Oliveira de Paula
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  6. Valéria Maia de Oliveira
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  7. Marliane de Cássia S. da Silva
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  8. Maria Catarina M. Kasuya
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  9. Maíra Paula de Sousa
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  10. Ana Paula R. Torres
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  11. Rodrigo Suhett Souza
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  12. João Paulo Bassin
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  13. Cynthia Canêdo da Silva
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Larissa Quartaroli, Lívia C. Fidélis Silva or Cynthia Canêdo da Silva.

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Funding

This study was funded by PETROBRAS (grant number 8603-4600391375).

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Additional information

Larissa Quartaroli and Lívia C. Fidélis Silva contributed equally to this work.

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Quartaroli, L., Silva, L.C.F., Silva, C.M. et al. Ammonium removal from high-salinity oilfield-produced water: assessing the microbial community dynamics at increasing salt concentrations. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 101, 859–870 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-016-7902-0

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