Effect of carbon source on nitrogen removal in anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) process

Abstract

Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) has been regarded as an efficient process to treat high-strength wastewater without organic carbon source. To investigate nitrogen removal performance of anammox in presence of organic carbon source can broaden its application on organic wastewater treatment. In this work, effect of carbon source on anammox process was explored. Operating temperature was set at 35±1°C. Influent pH and hydraulic retention time were 7.5 and 6h, respectively. Effluent [Formula: see text] was affected little with COD no more than 480mg/L. Independent of carbon source content, nitrite removal rate was around 99%. The variation of [Formula: see text] lagged behind [Formula: see text] at high COD content, and pH could be used as an indicator for [Formula: see text] removal. Specific anammox activity dropped from 0.39 to 0.19 [Formula: see text] at COD=720mg/L. The remodified logistic model was quite appropriate for describing the nitrogen removal kinetics and predicting the performance of anammox process in presence of carbon source.