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Published on: December 25, 2015
Behavior of nitrogen removal in an aerobic sponge based moving bed biofilm reactor
Xinbo Zhang1, Zi Song2, Wenshan Guo3
1Department of Environmental and Municipal Engineering, Joint Research Centre for Protective Infrastructure Technology and Environmental Green Bioprocess, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Aquatic Science and Technology, Tianjin Chengjian University, Jinjing Road 26, Tianjin 300384, China; State Key Laboratory of Separation Membranes and Membrane Processes, Tianjin 300387, China.
Abstract:
This study aims to investigate the behavior of nitrogen removal in an aerobic sponge based moving bed biofilm reactor by evaluating nitrification and denitrification rates of sponge biocarriers from three aerobic moving bed biofilm reactors (MBBRs) with filling ratios of 10% (R-10), 20% (R-20) and 30% (R-30). Results showed that the highest removal efficiencies of total nitrogen in three reactors were 84.5% (R-10), 93.6% (R-20) and 95.3% (R-30). Correspondingly, simultaneous nitrification and denitrification rate (SND) was 90.9%, 97.6% and 100%, respectively. Although R-20 had the highest attached-growth biomass (AGB) per gram of sponge compared to the other two reactors, R-30 showed the maximum ammonium oxidation rate (AOR) (2.1826±0.0717mgNH4+-N/gAGB/h) and denitrification rate (DNR) (5.0852±0.0891mgNO3--N/gAGB/h), followed by R-20 and R-10. These results indicated AOR, DNR and AGB were affected by the filling ratio under the same operation mode.
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