Nutrient removal in a sequencing batch reactor operated with short anaerobic/aerobic cycles

A single sequencing batch reactor operated with short intermittent aeration cycles was used to simultaneously remove carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus. The complete cycle, comprising feeding, anaerobiosis, aerobiosis, settling and decanting, was only 36 minutes long. The system has shown high and stable nutrient removal at 30 degrees C with acetate as carbon source and it has proved to be rather robust and dynamic, efficiently adapting to most of the changes in operating parameters tested: presence of nitrate in the feeding medium, different substrates (propionate and butyrate), temperature and nutrient shock loads. For the optimum conditions used, a removal efficiency of over 90% was obtained for each nutrient. Description of the population kinetics was obtained for each operating condition, by performing batch tests. Kinetic and stoichiometric parameters were used to infer the relative contribution of each group of microorganisms on SBR performance. Compared to the traditional SBR operated with cycles of 6 hours, the use of short intermittent aeration cycles of 36 minutes corresponds to a 40% reduction on aeration time.