Journal of Analytical & Bioanalytical Techniques
Open Access

Research Article

Analysis of Soluble Microbial Products by Mass Spectrometry: Potential in Monitoring Bioprocesses of Wastewater Treatment

Huixing Feng^1#, Yan Zhou^1#, Guili Zhao^1,3#, Jaslyn Lee^1,3, Chenghong Guo¹, Wun Jern Ng¹, Wei Ning Chen^2*

¹Advanced Environmental Biotechnology Centre, Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute, 1 Cleantech Loop, CleanTech One, #06-08 Singapore 637141

²School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 62 Nanyang Drive, 637459, Singapore.

³Interdisciplinary Graduate School, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

^#These authors contribute equally to this work.

*Corresponding Author:

Wei Ning Chen
School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
Nanyang Technological University
62 Nanyang Drive, 637459, Singapore
Tel: +65 63162870
Fax: +65 62259865
E-Mail: WNChen@ntu.edu.sg

Received date: March 13, 2014; Accepted date: April 28, 2015; Published date: May 05, 2015

Citation: Feng H, Zhou Y, Zhao G, Lee J, Guo C et al. (2015) Analysis of Soluble Microbial Products by Mass Spectrometry: Potential in Monitoring Bioprocesses of Wastewater Treatment. J Anal Bioanal Tech 6:241. doi: 10.4172/2155-9872.1000241

Copyright: © 2015 Feng H. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

In biological wastewater treatment process, the analysis of metabolic compounds that are produced during the process is critical to monitor the performance of microorganisms. The soluble products present in the effluent directly affect the process efficiency and quality of the water after treatment, and it is also the major reason for fouling in membrane bioreactor. Currently, analytical methods are mainly restricted to the overall measurement of the total amount of polysaccharides, DNA and proteins without any specific identification of these compounds. Here we introduce an explorative mass spectrometry based strategy, for the analysis of soluble microbial products and other soluble impurities in the effluents of wastewater treatments using different digestion process. According to the results from this study, the two stage co digestion process indicated higher treatment efficiency compared with the single stage process, since fewer compounds were detected in the effluent. For the two-stage process, most of the fatty acids produced in the first stage of digestion by hydrolysis and acidogenesis, were digested in the second stage. The results also indicated that the digestion efficiency of the single stage process was lower than that of the separated two-stage process. This study is one of few exploration of analyzing and identifying unknown compounds using MS based technique from a metabolic analysis perspective. Our novel approach can be applied as an analytical platform to effectively monitor the biological processes and provides a different view point in wastewater treatment systems.

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