Start-up of Simultaneous ANAMMOX and Denitrification Process and Changes in Microbial Community Characteristics

Abstract

To understand the relationship between nitrogen and carbon removal performance and the microbial community during start-up of simultaneous ANAMMOX and denitrification (SAD), nitrogen and carbon removal performance and microbial community change were studied by gradually increasing the influent COD concentration. The results showed that with the increase of the influent COD concentration, NH4+-N and NO2--N effluent remained stable, and the average removal rate was more than 98%. The removal rate of TN increased gradually, and the rate was 95.6% in the third stage, which was 6.8% higher than that of ANAMMOX in theory. ΔNO3--N/ΔNH4+-N decreased significantly from 0.15-0.17 to 0.03-0.07. The contribution rate of ANAMMOX to nitrogen removal decreased gradually, denitrification for nitrogen removal increased gradually, and the COD removal rate increased. Sludge activity analysis showed that the denitrification activity of sludge increased significantly and the ANAMMOX activity decreased slightly after the start-up of SAD. High throughput sequencing results showed that the dominant phyla of microorganisms in the reactor were Chloroflexi, Planctomycetes, Firmicutes, Armatimonadetes, and Proteobacteria. The characteristics of the microbial community in the reactor were closely related to the performance of SAD in nitrogen and carbon removal. The main functional microorganisms related to nitrogen and carbon removal were ANAMMOX bacteria, anaerobic digestive bacteria, and denitrifying bacteria. The abundance of ANAMMOX bacteria decreased after the start-up of SAD, and the anaerobic digestive bacteria and heterotrophic denitrifying bacteria increased significantly.