Authors: Pranabesh Ghosh, Abhishek Konar, Tahsina Tabia
Abstract: The microbial ecosystem within a wastewater treatment facility serves multiple functions-removal of contaminants, recycling nutrients, and recovering resources. However, conventional process monitoring focuses on bulk physicochemical data, limiting information on the microbial processes driving system function. Recent advancements in multi-omics technologies—metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metaproteomics, and other omics domains—have significantly advanced the study of the microbial communities in wastewater treatment by allowing researchers to comprehensively describe a microbial community's composition, functional capacity, and metabolic activity. Omics technologies have improved knowledge of the biological processes governing the nitrogen, phosphorus, and carbon cycles in wastewater, and the technologies can identify new contaminants and antibiotic resistance genes. When paired with predictive bioprocess modelling, multi-omic data enhances operational control and system stability and promotes energy-efficient process design. Omics data have revealed opportunities for the modernized wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) to transition to a water resource recovery facility (WRRF), wherein the plant can produce methane, recover nutrients, generate biopolymers, and contribute to the carbon economy. Despite advancements utilizing multi-omics technologies, there remain obstacles. Ongoing and emerging challenges include the high cost of sequencing, data integration difficulties, limited applicability to real-time processes, and a lack of infrastructure in developing regions. Closing the gap on process-scale implementation of multi-omics technologies will require standardized testing, multi-disciplinary collaboration, and the use of artificial intelligence control systems. Multi-omics techniques signify a changing of the guard in precision ecological engineering and the development of sustainable, climate-resilient, and resource-efficient bioprocess systems for wastewater treatment. Sustained technological advancement and integration at the systems level will be essential for the future of energy-positive and carbon-neutral wastewater treatment.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18755909
