Flexible Nitrite Supply Alternative for Mainstream Anammox: Advances in Enhancing Process Stability

摘要

Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) has attracted extensive attention as a potentially sustainable and economical municipal wastewater treatment process. However, its large-scale application is limited by unstable nitrite (NO_2~--N) production and associated excessive nitrate (NO_3~--N) residue. Thus, our study sought to evaluate an efficient alternative to the current nitritation-based anammox process substituting NO_2~--N supply by partial-denitrification (PD; NO_3~--N → NO_2~--N) under mainstream conditions. Ammonia (NH_4~+-N) was partly oxidized to NO_3~--N and removed via a PD coupled anammox (PD/A) process by mixing the nitrifying effluents with raw wastewater (NH_4~+-N of 57.87 mg L~(-1), COD of 176.02 mg L~(-1)). Excellent effluent quality was obtained with＜ 5 mg L~(-1) of total nitrogen (TN) despite frequent temperature fluctuations (25.7-16.3 °C). The genus Thauera (responsible for PD) was the dominant denitrifiers (36.496-37.4%) and coexisted with Candidates Brocadia (anammox bacteria; 0.33%-0.46%). The efficient PD/A allowed up to 50% reduction in aeration energy consumption, 80% decrease in organic resource demand, and lower nitrous oxide (N_2O) production compared to conventional nitrification/denitrification process. Our study demonstrates that coupling anammox with flexible NO_2~--N supply has great potential as a stable and efficient mainstream wastewater treatment.