Manning, Amy2024-06-182024-06-182024-04https://unbscholar.lib.unb.ca/handle/1882/38012A packaged dairy plant waste resource recovery facility in southern USA is experiencing long periods of inefficient ammonia removal. To investigate, alternative food-to microorganism (F:M) ratios using suspended cellular ATP (cATP), attached growth ATP (agATP), and theoretical oxygen demand (ThOD) were used. The system concentrations of ThOD and suspended cATP were key to this systems issues. This study also challenges the conventional assumption that attached growth biomass protects treatment efficiency from surges in organic loading. The percentages of agATP in comparison to suspended cATP in 2022 and 2023 were only 7.2 ± 1.8% and 13 ± 5.0%, respectively. 16S Next-generation sequencing (NGS) confirmed the differences as the top 85% of the suspended biomass community represents only 6% of the attached biomass community while the top 85% of the attached biomass community represents only 5% of the suspended biomass community.xi, 52electronicenhttp://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2master reportSingh, KripaCivil Engineering