Abstract
The amounts of temporal carbon storage material, polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA), were quantified in the course of wastewater treatment by different activated sludge reactors operated at Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, China. The studied reactors were five continuous ones and two sequencing batch ones. In all the reactors, PHA was detected, and its contents within activated sludge ranged between 0.2% and 3.2%. Soluble organic matters loaded to the reactors were mainly removed in the first anaerobic or microaerophilic tank and one fifth to all of removed soluble organic matters were tentatively stored as PHA in the studied reactors. It was concluded that not a small part of soluble organic matters in sewage is converted to PHA in the course of their removal by activated sludge.
