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Updated: May 9, 2026

A Novel Bioreactor for High Density Cultivation of Diverse Microbial Communities
Published on: December 25, 2015
An operational protocol for facilitating start-up of single-stage autotrophic nitrogen-removing reactors based on
A G Mutlu1, A K Vangsgaard, G Sin
1Department of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark. agzm@env.dtu.dk
Abstract:
Start-up and operation of single-stage nitritation-anammox sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) for completely autotrophic nitrogen removal can be challenging and far from trivial. In this study, a step-wise procedure is developed based on stoichiometric analysis of the process performance from nitrogen species measurements to systematically guide start-up and normal operation efforts (instead of trial and error). The procedure is successfully applied to laboratory-scale SBRs for start-up and maintained operation over an 8-month period. This analysis can serve as a strong decision-making tool to take appropriate actions with respect to reactor operation to accelerate start-up or ensure high-rate N removal via the nitritation-anammox pathway.
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