Reduced nitrous oxide emissions in a comammox-dominated continuous-flow moving bed biofilm reactor compared to a...

The complete ammonia oxidation (comammox) bacteria play an important role in biological nitrogen removal from wastewater. However, limited information is available on the effect of reactor operational mode on comammox bacteria enrichment and the associated nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions under varying dissolved oxygen (DO) and ammonium levels. In this work, a moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR) and a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) were adopted to selectively enrich comammox bacteria under oligotrophic (∼142.7 mg N/L/d) and oxygen-rich (> 6.0 mg O₂/L) conditions. Stable ammonium removals (>90%) were achieved for both reactors, with comammox bacteria dominating over counterparts at relative abundances of 97.4-98.9%. N₂O emission factors across operational cycles were ∼ 0.06% and ∼ 0.1% for the comammox-dominated MBBR and SBR, respectively. DO played an important role in N₂O production by either comammox-dominated biofilm or comammox-dominated floccular sludge. Increasing DO from 0.35 to 6.0 mg O₂/L resulted in a significant decrease in N₂O emissions for both comammox-dominated biofilm (0.5% to 0.04%) and floccular sludge (0.5% to 0.1%), mainly through suppressing abiotic NH₂OH oxidation pathway. Non-aerated settling and decanting phases in the batch-mode SBR were responsible for 46.1% higher N₂O emissions compared to the continuous-flow MBBR, probably ascribed to the heterotrophic denitrification in comammox-dominated floccular sludge under limited oxygen and organic carbon availabilities. These results suggest the potential of comammox-dominated biofilm-driven continuous-flow reactors in reducing N₂O emissions while maintaining efficient pollutant removal.