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Conversion of full nitritation to partial nitritation/anammox in a continuous granular reactor for low-strength ammonium wastewater treatment at 20 °C

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Abstract

The feasibility of converting full nitritation to partial nitritation/anammox (PN/A) at ambient temperature (20 °C) was investigated in a continuous granular reactor. The process was conducted without anammox bacteria inoculation for the treatment of 70 mg L−1 of low-strength ammonium nitrogen wastewater. Following the stepwise increase of the nitrogen loading rate from 0.84 to 1.30 kg N m−3 d−1 in 320 days of operation, the removal efficiency of total inorganic nitrogen (TIN) exceeded 80% under oxygen-limiting conditions. The mature PN/A granules, which had a compact structure and abundant biomass, exhibited a specific TIN removal rate of 0.11 g N g−1 VSS d−1 and a settling velocity of 70.2 m h−1. This was comparable with that obtained at above 30 °C in previous reports. High-throughput pyrosequencing results revealed that the co-enrichment of aerobic and anaerobic ammonium-oxidizing bacteria identified as genera Nitrosomonas and Candidatus Kuenenia, which prompted a hybrid competition for oxygen and nitrite with nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (NOB). However, the overgrowth of novel NOB Candidatus Nitrotoga adapted to low temperatures and low nitrite concentration could potentially deteriorate the one-stage PN/A process by exhausting residual bulk ammonium under long-term excessive aeration.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41807142, 51878430), the Open Project of National & Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Municipal Sewage Resource Utilization Technology (Grant No.2019KF02), and Jiangsu graduate research and practice innovation program, China (Grant No. SJCX20_1101). Authors also acknowledge the support from the Qinglan Project for Jiangsu Colleges and Universities, China.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, No. 1 Kerui Road, Suzhou, 215009, People’s Republic of China

    Feiyue Qian, Ziheng Huang, Yuxin Liu, Olatidoye Omo wumi Grace, Jianfang Wang & Guangyu Shi

  2. National and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of Municipal Sewage Resource Utilization Technology, Suzhou, 215009, People’s Republic of China

    Feiyue Qian, Jianfang Wang & Guangyu Shi

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  1. Feiyue Qian
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Correspondence to Feiyue Qian.

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Qian, F., Huang, Z., Liu, Y. et al. Conversion of full nitritation to partial nitritation/anammox in a continuous granular reactor for low-strength ammonium wastewater treatment at 20 °C. Biodegradation 32, 87–98 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10532-020-09923-w

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