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Updated: Mar 21, 2026

Electrochemically and Bioelectrochemically Induced Ammonium Recovery
Published on: January 22, 2015
Sulfur-based autotrophic denitrification with eggshell for nitrate-contaminated synthetic groundwater treatment
Yaxian Xu1,2, Nan Chen1,2, Chuanping Feng1,2
1a School of Water Resources and Environment , China University of Geosciences , Beijing , People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
Eggshell is considered to be a waste and a significant quantity of eggshell waste is generated from food processing, baking and hatching industries. In this study, the effect of different sulfur/eggshell (w/w) ratios and temperatures was investigated to evaluate the feasibility of the sulfur-based autotrophic denitrification with eggshell (SADE) process for nitrate removal. The results showed eggshell can maintain a neutral condition in a range of pH 7.05-7.74 in the SADE process, and remove 97% of nitrate in synthetic groundwater. Compared with oyster shell and limestone, eggshell was found to be a desirable alkaline material for sulfur-based autotrophic denitrification (SAD) with no nitrite accumulation and insignificant sulfate production. Denitrification reaction was found to follow the first-order kinetic models (R(2) > .9) having nitrate removal rate constants of 0.85 and 0.93 d(-1) for raw eggshell and boiled eggshell, respectively. Sulfur/eggshell ratio of 2:3 provided the best efficiency on nitrate removal. Nitrate was removed completely by the SADE process at a low temperature of 15°C. Eggshell could be used for the SAD process due to its good effect for nitrate removal from groundwater.
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