N2O emission in partial nitritation-anammox process

Abstract

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is one of the significant greenhouse gases, and partial nitritation-anammox (PNA) process emits higher N2O than traditional nitrogen removal processes. N2O production in PNA mainly occurs in three different pathways, i.e., the ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) denitrification, the hydroxylamine (NH2OH) oxidation and heterotrophic denitrifiers denitrification. N2O emission data vary significantly because of the different operational conditions, bioreactor configurations, monitoring systems and quantitative methods. Under the common operational parameter scopes of PNA, N2O emission via NH2OH oxidation dominates at relatively low dissolved oxygen (DO), low inorganic carbon (IC), high pH or low NO2− concentration, while N2O emission via AOB denitrification dominates at relative higher DO, higher IC, lower pH or higher NO2− concentration. AOB are highly enriched while nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (NOB) are rarely found in partial nitritation process, and the order Nitrosomonadales of AOB is the dominant group and N2O producer. Anammox bacteria, AOB and certain amount of heterotrophic denitrifying bacteria are observed in the anammox process, the genus Denitratisoma and the heterotrophic denitrifying bacteria in the deep layer of anammox granules are the dominant N2O generation bacteria. In one-stage PNA reactors, anammox bacteria account for a large fraction of the biomass, AOB account for small portion, and NOB account for even less. The microbial community, diversity and N2O producers in one-stage PNA reactors are similar with those in two-stage PNA reactors. The dominant anammox bacteria, AOB and NOB in PNA are the species Candidatus Brocadia, the genera of Nitrotoga, Nitrospira and Nitrobacter, and the genus Nitrosomonas, respectively. The relations between N2O emission pathways and microbial communities need further study in the future.