Pre-concentration of ammonium to enhance treatment of wastewater using the partial nitritation/anammox process

Abstract

The anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) process is one of the most cost-effective technologies for removing excessive nitrogen compounds from effluents of wastewater treatment plants. The study was conducted to assess the feasibility of using ion exchange (IE) and reverse osmosis (RO) methods to concentrate ammonium to support partial nitritation/anammox process, which so far has been used for treating only wastewater with high concentrations of ammonium. Upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor effluents with 40.40, 37.90 and 21.80 mg NH4─N/L levels were concentrated with IE method to 367.20, 329.50 and 187.50 mg NH4─N/L, respectively, which were about nine times the initial concentrations. RO method was also used to concentrate 41.0 mg NH4─N/L of UASB effluent to 163 mg NH4─N/L at volume reduction factor 5. The rates of nitrogen removal from respective RO pretreated concentrates by partial nitritation/anammox technology were 0.60, 1.10 and 0.50 g N/m2day. The rates were largely influenced by initial nitrogen concentration. However, rates of RO concentrates were 0.74, 0.92 and 0.81 g N/m2day even at lower initial NH4─N concentration. It was found out from the study that higher salinity decreased the rate of nitrogen removal when using partial nitritation/anammox process. Dissolved oxygen concentration of ∼1 mg/L was optimal for the operation of the partial nitritation/anammox process when treating IE and RO concentrates. The result shows that IE and RO methods can precede a partial nitritation/anammox process to enhance the treatment of wastewater with low ammonium loads.