A novel anammox reactor with a nitrogen gas circulation: performance, granule size, activity, and microbial community

• Published in: Environmental science and pollution research international Vol. 27; no. 15; pp. 18661 - 18671
• Main Authors: Chen, Wenjing, Chen, Shengdong, Hu, Fan, Liu, Wenru, Yang, Dianhai, Wu, Jun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.05.2020; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Ammonia-oxidizing bacteria; anaerobic ammonium oxidation; Aquatic Pollution; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Bacteria; Candidatus Brocadia; Denitration; Denitratisoma; Dissolved oxygen; Earth and Environmental Science; Ecotoxicology; Energy conservation; Environment; Environmental Chemistry; Environmental Health; Environmental science; Granular materials; Heterotrophic bacteria; Load distribution; Loading rate; microbial communities; Microbiomes; Microorganisms; Next-generation sequencing; Nitrogen; Nitrogen removal; Reactors; Research Article; Sequence analysis; Size distribution; Waste Water Technology; Wastewater treatment; Wastewater treatment plants; Water Management; Water Pollution Control; Nitrogen removal; Denitrifying bacteria; Dissolved oxygen loading; Granular aggregates; Activity test; Biomass segregation
• ISSN: 0944-1344; 1614-7499; 1614-7499
• DOI: 10.1007/s11356-020-08432-w

Anammox process was regarded to be one of the vital links to achieve energy-saving or energy-producing wastewater treatment plant. In the study, an anammox reactor with the nitrogen gas circulation was constructed to culture anammox granules, and the performance, granule size distribution, and microbial community were investigated. Dissolved oxygen loading is found to be an important factor for the start-up of the anammox process, and the nitrogen removal rate of 2.12 kg N m −3  day −1 was achieved under the average nitrogen loading rate of 2.6 kg N m −3  day −1 . The activity test showed that the highest specific anammox activity of 345.9 mg N gVSS −1  day −1 was achieved for granules with size of 0.5–1.0 mm. The Illumina high-throughput sequencing analysis revealed the consistent variation of Candidatus Brocadia and Denitratisoma abundance in granues of all sizes, suggesting possible synergistic mechanism between heterotrophic bacteria Denitratisoma and anammox bacteria Ca. Brocadia . Furthermore, the results indicated the reactor with the nitrogen gas circulation is an efficient strategy to start-up anammox.