Biological treatment of ammonium-rich wastewater by partial nitritation and subsequent anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) in a pilot plant

Abstract

In wastewater treatment plants with anaerobic sludge digestion, 15–20% of the nitrogen load is recirculated to the main stream with the return liquors from dewatering. Separate treatment of this ammonium-rich digester supernatant would significantly reduce the nitrogen load of the activated sludge system. Some years ago, a novel biological process was discovered in which ammonium is converted to nitrogen gas under anoxic conditions with nitrite as the electron acceptor (anaerobic ammonium oxidation, anammox). Compared to conventional nitrification and denitrification, the aeration and carbon-source demand is reduced by over 50 and 100%, respectively. The combination of partial nitritation to produce nitrite in a first step and subsequent anaerobic ammonium oxidation in a second reactor was successfully tested on a pilot scale (3.6 m³) for over half a year. This report focuses on the feasibility of nitrogen removal from digester effluents from two different wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) with the combined partial nitritation/anammox process. Nitritation was performed in a continuously stirred tank reactor (V=2.0 m³) without sludge retention. Some 58% of the ammonium in the supernatant was converted to nitrite. At 30 °C the maximum dilution rate D_x was 0.85 d⁻¹, resulting in nitrite production of 0.35 kg NO₂–N m⁻³_reactor d⁻¹. The nitrate production was marginal. The anaerobic ammonium oxidation was carried out in a sequencing batch reactor (SBR, V=1.6 m³) with a nitrogen elimination rate of 2.4 kg N m⁻³_reactor d⁻¹ during the nitrite-containing periods of the SBR cycle. Over 90% of the inlet nitrogen load to the anammox reactor was removed and the sludge production was negligible. The nitritation efficiency of the first reactor limited the overall maximum rate of nitrogen elimination.