Abstract
Discharge of wastewater contained high amount of nitrogen would cause eutrophication to water bodies. Simultaneous nitrification and denitrification (SND) has been confirmed as an effective process, the isolation of SND bacteria is crucial for its successful operation. In this study, an SND strain was isolated and identified as Pseudomona aeruginosa LS82, which exhibited a rapid growth rate (0.385 h−1) and good nitrogen removal performance (4.96 mg N·L−1·h−1). Response surface methodology was applied to optimize the TN removal conditions, at which nearly complete nitrogen (99.8 ± 0.9%) removal were obtained within 18 h at the condition: pH 8.47, 100 rpm and the C/N ratio of 19.7. The saddle-shaped contours confirmed that the interaction of pH and inoculum size would influence the removal of total nitrogen significantly. Kinetic analyses indicated that the reduction of nitrite was the rate-limiting step in the SND process. Our research suggested strain LS82 can serve as a promising candidate for the treatment of ammonium rich wastewater, and expended our understanding the nitrogen removal mechanism in the SND process.