The characteristics of the start-up period of single-step autotrophic nitrogen removal process were investigated. The autotrophic nitrogen removal process used a sequencing batch reactor to treat wastewater of medium to low ammonia-nitrogen concentration, with dissolved oxygen (DO), hydraulic retention time (HRT) and temperature controlled. The experimental conditions were temperature at (30±2) °C, ammonia concentration of (60 to 120) mg/L, DO of (0.8 to 1.0) mg/L, pH from 7.8 to 8.5 and HRT of 24 h. The rates of nitrification and nitrogen removal turn out to be 77% and 40%, respectively, after a start up period going through three stages divided according to nitrite accumulation: sludge domestication, nitrifying bacteria selection and sludge adaptation. It is demonstrated that dissolved oxygen is critical to nitrite accumulation and elastic YJZH soft compound packing is superior to polyhedral hollow balls in helping the bacteria adhere to the membrane.
In this study,three sequential batch biofilm reactors(SBBRs)were operated for 155 days to evaluate the performance of completely autotrophic nitrogen removal over nitrite(CANON)process under different aeration modes and dissolved oxygen(DO).Synthetic wastewater with 160-mg NH_(4)^(+)-N/L was fed into the reactors.In the continuously-aerated reactor,the efficiency of the ammonium nitrogen conversion and total nitrogen(TN)removal reached 80% and 70%,respectively,with DO between 0.8–1.0 mg/L.Whereas in the intermittently-aerated reactor,at the aeration/non-aeration ratio of 1.0,ammonium was always under the detection limit and 86% of TN was removed with DO between 2.0–2.5 mg/L during the aeration time.Results show that CANON could be achieved in both continuous and intermittent aeration pattern.However,to achieve the same nitrogen removal efficiency,the DO needed in the intermittently-aerated sequential batch biofilm reactor(SBBR)during the aeration period was higher than that in the continuously-aerated SBBR.In addition,the DO in the CANON system should be adjusted to the aeration mode,and low DO was not a prerequisite to CANON process.
