Biostimulation of prokaryotic communities in drinking water biofilters.

The main objective of this PhD project is: to investigate new drinking water treatment methods for producing higher quality drinking water in a more energy efficient manner through the use of biostimulation.

Recent advances in molecular microbiology have enabled researches to begin to elucidate the microbial communities present in drinking water biofilters. This new information of abundance, diversity and activity of prokaryotic biofilm communities opens the door to additional opportunities such as biostimulation, which is the modification of the environmental conditions e.g. to stimulate the growth and metabolism of microorganisms relevant for water treatment. Biostimulation has the potential to become a valuable technique for water treatment since low substrate concentrations, low temperatures and oligotrophic conditions in Danish drinking water biofilters restrict microbial proliferation, causing water treatment to be slow, inefficient and sometimes inadequate. This project investigates the biostimulation potential of alternative filter media selection, addition of nutrients and novel process design.