ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the fundamentals of wastewater microbiology by examining microorganisms' nutritional requirements, enzymic reactions involved in their activities, environmental parameters affecting their growth and activities, and microbial groups associated with various biological wastewater treatment processes. All microbial cell activities depend upon food utilization, and all chemical reactions involved are controlled by enzymes. Enzymes are proteins produced by a living cell that act as a catalyst to accelerate specific reactions in accordance with rate equations. Enzyme activity is affected by environmental conditions, which also affects the activity of the corresponding microorganisms. The biological treatment processes that exploit these microorganisms are often referred to as anoxic. The biological treatment processes that exploit these microorganisms are often referred to as anoxic. Bacteria are members of a diverse and ubiquitous group of prokaryotic, single-celled organisms. Algae is a heterogeneous group of eukaryotic, photo-synthetic, unicellular, and multicellular organisms lacking true tissue differentiation.
