ABSTRACT
Aerobic granulation technology is an emerging technology of wastewater treatment, which has been mostly explored by the researchers from around 1998-2000. Aerobic granules are formed during wastewater treatment in sequencing batch reactor (SBR) by self-immobilization of different types of microorganisms present in the wastewater. This chapter provides an outline of the roles of SBR in granule formation and proposes various hypotheses to explain the granulation process. Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain the mechanisms behind microbial granule formation. Extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) produced by the microbial cells may include proteins, polysaccharides, and nucleic acids among others. Exopolysaccharides, proteins, lipids and nucleic acid are the major components of the EPS found in aerobic granules. Long incubation time required for granule development and the uncertainty involving the appearance of stable granules are the other concerns of this technology. Bioaugmentation is a strategy to enhance the performance of a bioprocess by externally adding one or more microbial strains to the process.
