Anaerobic process is a sustainable technology for treating domestic sewage in temperate countries allowing energy savings. However, it has two main inconveniences: The negligible nitrogen removal and the emissions of methane to the environment. In order to mitigate the impact of anaerobic effluents, the PhD candidate Tomás Allegue is studying the use of two different technologies in which dissolved methane is proposed as electron donor to denitrify: a MBR and a CAS. Both in the framework of the COMETT project funded by the Spanish Government.

Besides, the development and study of the novel DAMO (Denitrifying Anaerobic Methane Oxidation) processes is being developed, since they could play a key role in the future WWTPs, making them more sustainable and efficient. Nevertheless, before applying DAMO microorganisms at full-scale plants, further understanding on their physiology and kinetics is still needed. In this context, Tomás carried out a research stay at the Advanced Water Management Centre (University of Queensland, Australia) to study the short-term effect of sulfide on a consortia damo-anammox.

Tomás Allegue presented his work in the Biogroup´s internal seminars: