Reduction and prediction of N2O emission from an Anoxic/Oxic wastewater treatment plant upon DO control and model simulation

Abstract

In order to make a better understanding of the characteristics of N2O emission in A/O wastewater treatment plant, full-scale and pilot-scale experiments were carried out and a back propagation artificial neural network model based on the experimental data was constructed to make a precise prediction of N2O emission. Results showed that, N2O flux from different units followed a descending order: aerated grit tank>oxic zone≫anoxic zone>final clarifier>primary clarifier, but 99.4% of the total emission of N2O (1.60% of N-load) was monitored from the oxic zone due to its big surface area. A proper DO control could reduce N2O emission down to 0.21% of N-load in A/O process, and a two-hidden-layers back propagation model with an optimized structure of 4:3:9:1 could achieve a good simulation of N2O emission, which provided a new method for the prediction of N2O emission during wastewater treatment.