Heterotrophic integration enhances structural resilience of anammox granules through extracellular polymeric substance interface remodeling.

Heterotrophic integration improves anammox granule resilience by remodeling EPS interfaces, reducing diameter loss by 17.4% after 70 cycles in wastewater treatment.

• Why it matters: Understanding how microbial community interactions enhance granule stability is crucial for optimizing long-term wastewater treatment processes, especially under operational disturbances.
• What they did: The study compared heterotroph-integrated PDA granules with separate PD and AMX granules, analyzing their structural and microbial community changes over multiple operational cycles.
• The result: Heterotrophic integration led to a balanced EPS matrix with 86.1% T-EPS, strengthening cohesion and microbial diversity, thereby enhancing biomass retention and process robustness.