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Municipal wastewater usually contains nitrate and phosphate as major contaminants, and if discharged untreated affects the health of the environment and human population. Currently available treatment technologies to treat municipal wastewater lose the essential growth nutrients ‘P’ and ‘N’ during treatment. This paper presents a strategy of simultaneous sequestration of nitrate and phosphate in biomass, by using a tailor‐made consortium in a biofilm reactor.

The consortium comprising of three novel Bacillus strains in a fixed bed biofilm bioreactor maintained at ambient temperature showed reduction up to 94% of nitrate, 68% of phosphate, 93% of chemical oxygen demand, 97% of biochemical oxygen demand, 73% in total organic carbon while maintaining an effluent pH of 6.8 ± 0.02. Response surface methodology revealed maximum reduction at a flow rate of 1.97 L h^‐1 with 306 …