Start-up of CANON Process and Short-cut Nitrification in a Pilot-scale MBBR Reactor

Abstract

Using a 150 L moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR), with the temperature controlled at 28℃ and high NH4+-N concentration (average concentration 350 mg·L-1), inorganic wastewater was used as an influent to start the completely autotrophic nitrogen removal over nitrite (CANON) process. Meanwhile, the flocculent sludge was taken into a 5 L sequencing batch reactor, and the influent NH4+-N concentration was maintained at 90-200 mg·L-1 for the recovery of short-cut nitrification. The results showed that in the MBBR reactor, when the average hydraulic retention time (HRT) was 12 h, short-cut nitrification and total nitrogen (TN) removal rate were mutually constrained, the average TN removal rate was 38.2%, and the average δNO3--N/TN value was 0.274; when the HRT dropped to 6 h, the δNO3--N/TN value decreased from 0.347 to 0.146. The sequencing batch reactor (SBR) maintained aeration and anoxic time for 30 min and 20 min, respectively, by intermittent aeration, while the dissolved oxygen concentration during the aerobic process was 0.5 mg·L-1 to 0.6 mg·L-1, the free nitrous acid concentration was higher than 0.18 mg·L-1 at the end of each cycle, NAR increased from 0 to 99.2% after 12 days, NUR decreased to 0 from an initial 24.8 mg·(g·h)-1, and the TN removal rate decreased from 13% to 3%; the system successfully converted to short-range nitrification. High-throughput sequencing results showed that the abundance of Candidatus Kuenenia in the flocculent sludge and biofilm in the MBBR reactor were 7.91% and 17.38% respectively, Nitrosomonas accounted for 27.43% and 2.55%, respectively, while Nitrospira accounted for 0.30% and 0.28%, respectively. After the recovery of short-cut nitrification in the SBR, the abundance of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and anaerobic ammonia oxidation decreased to 1.18% and 0.01%, respectively, and the abundance of Nitrospira increased to 1.39%.