Search Results (7)

Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) technologies have attracted substantial interest due to their advantages over traditional biological nitrogen removal processes, including high efficiency and low energy demand. Currently, multiple side-stream applications of the anammox coupling process have been developed, including one-stage, two-stage, and three-stage systems such as completely autotrophic nitrogen removal over nitrite, denitrifying ammonium oxidation, simultaneous nitrogen and phosphorus removal, partial denitrification-anammox, and partial nitrification and integrated fermentation denitritation. The one-stage system includes completely autotrophic nitrogen removal over nitrite, oxygen-limited autotrophic nitrification/denitrification, aerobic de-ammonification, single-stage nitrogen removal using anammox, and partial nitritation. Two-stage systems, such as the single reactor system for high-activity ammonium removal over nitrite, integrated fixed-film activated sludge, and simultaneous nitrogen and phosphorus removal, have also been developed. Three-stage systems comprise partial nitrification anammox, partial denitrification anammox, simultaneous ammonium oxidation denitrification, and partial nitrification and integrated fermentation denitritation. The performance of these systems is highly dependent on interactions between functional microbial communities, physiochemical parameters, and environmental factors. Mainstream applications are not well developed and require further research and development. Mainstream applications demand a high carbon/nitrogen ratio to maintain levels of nitrite-oxidizing bacteria, high concentrations of ammonium and nitrite in wastewater, and retention of anammox bacteria biomass. To summarize various aspects of the anammox processes, this review provides information regarding the microbial diversity of different genera of anammox bacteria and the engineering aspects of various side streams and mainstream anammox processes for wastewater treatment. Additionally, this review offers detailed insights into the challenges related to anammox technology and delivers solutions for future sustainable research. Full article

The extensive application of ceramic membranes in wastewater treatment draws increasing attention due to their ultra-long service life. A cost-effective treatment for high-strength swine wastewater is an urgent and current need that is a worldwide challenge. A pilot-scale sequencing batch flat-sheet ceramic membrane bioreactor (ScMBR) coupled with a short-cut biological nitrogen removal (SBNR) process was developed to treat high-strength swine wastewater. The ScMBR achieved stable and excellent removal of COD (95.3%), NH₄⁺-N (98.3%), and TN (92.7%), though temperature went down from 20 °C, to 15 °C, to 10 °C stepwise along three operational phases. The COD and NH₄⁺-N concentrations in the effluent met with the discharge standards (GB18596-2001). Microbial community diversity was high, and the genera Pseudomonas and Comamonas were dominant in denitritation, and Nitrosomonas was dominant in nitritation. Ceramic membrane modules of this pilot-scale reactor were separated into six layers (A, B, C, D, E, F) from top to bottom. The total filtration resistance of both the top and bottom membrane modules was relatively low, and the resistance of the middle ones was high. These results indicate that the spatial distribution of the membrane fouling degree was different, related to different aeration scour intensities demonstrated by computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The results prove that the membrane fouling mechanism can be attributed to the cake layer formation of the middle modules and pore blocking of the top and bottom modules, which mainly consist of protein and carbohydrates. Therefore, different cleaning measures should be adopted for membrane modules in different positions. In this study, the efficient treatment of swine wastewater shows that the ScMBR system could be applied to high-strength wastewater. Furthermore, the spatial distribution characteristics of membrane fouling contribute to cleaning strategy formulation for further full-scale MBR applications. Full article

This paper describes a case study involving a revamping of a full-scale membrane bioreactor that treats landfill leachate and other liquid wastes. The main change was the introduction of nitritation/denitritation in alternating cycles instead of the classic denitrification/nitrification process, together with the installation of fine bubble diffusers, a reduction in the volume of the biological compartment, and an increase in the equalization volume. The most significant results were obtained for the biological compartment, with a decrease in the specific energy consumption of 46.6%. At the same time, the removal efficiency of COD, BOD, and TN substantially remained the same before and after plant revamping, while the removal efficiency of TP increased over the years, reaching an average value of almost 71%. Regarding the ultrafiltration unit, the specific flux (or permeability) was characterized by an increasing trend. At the same time, the specific energy consumption of this section decreased by 9.4%. These results led to the conclusion that the changes introduced with the revamp led to a more stable process, a reduction in membrane fouling, and important energy savings. Full article

Novel technologies such as partial nitritation (PN) and partial denitritation (PDN) could be combined with the anammox-based process in order to alleviate energy input. The former combination, also noted as deammonification, has been intensively studied in a frame of lab and full-scale wastewater treatment in order to optimize operational costs and process efficiency. For the deammonification process, key functional microbes include ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and anaerobic ammonia oxidation bacteria (AnAOB), which coexisting and interact with heterotrophs and nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB). The aim of the presented review was to summarize current knowledge about deammonification process principles, related to microbial interactions responsible for the process maintenance under varying operational conditions. Particular attention was paid to the factors influencing the targeted selection of AOB/AnAOB over the NOB and application of the mathematical modeling as a powerful tool enabling accelerated process optimization and characterization. Another reviewed aspect was the potential energetic and resources savings connected with deammonification application in relation to the technologies based on the conventional nitrification/denitrification processes. Full article

A high concentration of suspended solids (SS) in swine wastewater reduces the efficiency of the biological treatment process. The current study developed a short-cut combined magnetic coagulation (MC)–sequence batch membrane bioreactor (SMBR) process to treat swine wastewater. Compared with the single SMBR process, the combined process successfully achieved similarly high removal efficiencies of chemical oxygen demand (COD), total nitrogen (TN), ammonium nitrogen (${\mathrm{N}\mathrm{H}}_4^{+}$-N), and total phosphorous (TP) of 96.0%, 97.6%, 99.0%, and 69.1%, respectively, at dosages of 0.5 g/L of poly aluminium chloride (PAC), 2 mg/L of polyacrylamide (PAM), and 1 g/L of magnetic seeds in Stage II, and concentrations of TN, COD, and ${\mathrm{N}\mathrm{H}}_4^{+}$-N in effluent can meet the discharge standards for pollutants for livestock and poultry breeding (GB18596-2001, China). The nitrogen removal loading (NRL) was increased from 0.21 to 0.28 kg/(m³·d), and the hydraulic retention time (HRT) was shortened from 5.0 days to 4.3 days. High-throughput sequencing analysis was carried out to investigate microbial community evolution, and the results showed that the relative abundance of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) in the SMBR increased from 0.1% without pre-treatment to 1.78% with the pre-treatment of MC. Full article

The effect of electrostatic fields on the bioelectrochemical removal of ammonium and nitrite from nitrogen-rich wastewater was investigated at strengths ranging from 0.2 to 0.67 V/cm in bioelectrochemical anaerobic batch reactors. The electrostatic field enriched the bulk solution with electroactive bacteria, including ammonium oxidizing exoelectrogens (AOE) and denitritating electrotrophs (DNE). The electroactive bacteria removed ammonium and nitrite simultaneously with alkalinity consumption through biological direct interspecies electron transfer (DIET) in the bulk solution. However, the total nitrogen (ammonium and nitrite) removal rate increased from 106.1 to 166.3 mg N/g volatile suspended solids (VSS).d as the electrostatic field strength increased from 0.2 to 0.67 V/cm. In the cyclic voltammogram, the redox peaks corresponding to the activities of AOE and DNE increased as the strength of the electrostatic field increased. Based on the microbial taxonomic profiling, the dominant genera involved in the bioelectrochemical nitrogen removal were identified as Pseudomonas, Petrimonas, DQ677001_g, Thiopseudomonas, Lentimicrobium, and Porphyromonadaceae_uc. This suggests that the electrostatic field of 0.67 V/cm significantly improves the bioelectrochemical nitrogen removal by enriching the bulk solution with AOE and DNE and promoting the biological DIET between them. Full article

In this work, the feasibility of the Shortcut Biological Nitrogen Removal (SBNR) in the anodic chamber of a Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) was investigated. Thirty day experiments were carried out using synthetic wastewaters with a Total Organic Carbon vs. nitrogen ratio (TOC/N) ranging from 0.1 to 1. Ammonium, nitrite, nitrate, pH, and TOC were daily monitored. Results showed that microaerobic conditions in the anodic chamber favored the development of nitritation reaction, due to oxygen transfer from the cathodic chamber through the membrane. Nitritation was found to depend on TOC/N ratio: at TOC/N equal to 0.1 an ammonium removal efficiency of up to 76% was observed. Once the oxygen supply to the cathodic chamber was stopped, denitritation occurred, favored by an increase of the TOC/N ratio: a nitrite removal of 80.3% was achieved at TOC/N equal to 0.75. The presence of nitrogen species strongly affected the potential of the electrochemical system: in the nitritation step, the Open Circuit Voltage (OCV) decreased from 180 mV to 21 mV with the decrease of the TOC/N ratio in the investigated range. Lower OCV values were observed in the denitritation steps since the organic carbon acted as the energy source for the conversion of nitrite to nitrogen gas. A kinetic analysis was also performed. Monod and Blackman models described the ammonium and the organic carbon removal processes well during the nitritation step, respectively, while Blackman-Blackman fitted experimental results of the denitritation step better. Full article