Nitrogen and phosphorus removal under intermittent aeration conditions

A practice wastewater treatment plant was operated using intermittent aeration activated sludge process to enhance biological nitrogen and phosphorus removal. When the influent concentrations of COD Cr , BOD 5, TN, TP, NH 3\|N, TKN, and SS varied in a range of 207.5—1640 mg/L, 61.8—637 mg/L, 28.5—75.6 mg/L, 4.38—20.2 mg/L, 13.6—31.9 mg/L, 28.5—75.6 mg/L, and 111—1208 mg/L, the effluent means were less than 50 mg/L, 20 mg/L, 5 mg/L, 1.0 mg/L, 5 mg/L, 10 mg/L, and 20 mg/L, respectively. Based on a long time of operating results, this process is very suitable for nutrient biological removal for treating the municipal wastewater those water characteristics are similar as that of the Songjiang Municipal Waste Water Treatment Plant(SJMWTP).

Enhancement of simultaneous nitrogen and phosphorus removal using intermittent aeration mechanism

Biological nutrient removal grows into complicated scenario due to the microbial consortium shift and kinetic competition between phosphorus(P)-accumulating and nitrogen(N)-removing microorganisms.In this study,three sequential batch reactors with constant operational conditions except aeration patterns at 6 h cycle periods were tested.Intermittent aeration was applied to develop a robust nutrient removal system aimed to achieve high energy saving and removal efficiency.The results showed higher correspondence of Puptake,polymeric substance synthesis and glycogen degradation in intermittent-aeration with longer interval periods compared to continuous-aeration.Increasing the intermittentaeration duration from 25 to 50 min,resulted in higher process performance where the system exhibited approximately 30%higher nutrient removal.This study indicated that nutrient removal strongly depends on reaction phase configuration representing the importance of aeration pattern.The microbial community examined the variation in abundance of bacterial groups in suspended sludge,where the 50 min intermittent aeration,favored the growth of P-accumulating organisms and nitrogen removalmicrobial groups,indicating the complications related to nutrient removal systems.Successful intermittently aerated process with high capability of simple implementation to conventional systems by elemental retrofitting,is applicable for upgrading wastewater treatment plants.With aeration as a major operational cost,this process is a promising approach to potentially remove nutrients in high competence,in distinction to optimizing cost-efficacy of the system.

Effect of intermittent aeration mode on nitrogen concentration in the water column and sediment pore water of aquaculture ponds

Nitrogen in pond sediments is a major water quality concern and can impact the productivity of aquaculture.Dissolved oxygen is an important factor for improving water quality and boosting fish growth in aquaculture ponds,and plays an important role in the conversion of ammonium-nitrogen(NH4-N)to nitrite-nitrogen(NO2--N)and eventually nitrate-nitrogen(NO3--N).A central goal of the study was to identify the best aeration method and strategy for improving water quality in aquaculture ponds.We conducted an experiment with six tanks,each with a different aeration mode to simulate the behavior of aquaculture ponds.The results show that a 36 hr aeration interval(Tc=36 hr:36 hr)and no aeration resulted in high concentrations of NH4-N in the water column.Using a 12 hr interval time(Tc=12 hr:12 hr)resulted in higher NO2--N and NO3--N concentrations than any other aeration mode.Results from an 8 hr interval time(Tc=8 hr:8 hr)and 24 hr interval time(Tc=24 hr:24 hr)were comparable with those of continuous aeration,and had the benefit of being in use for only half of the time,consequently reducing energy consumption.

Effect of Intermittent Aeration on the Treatment Performance in a Submerged Membrane Bioreactor

In order to improve removal for nitrogen in a pilot-scale submerged membrane bioreactor（SMBR）,intermittent aeration was conducted,and the effect on the treatment performance under four kinds of operation condition（run 1,continuous aeration;run 2,60/60 min aeration on/off time;run 3,60/90 min aeration on/off time;run 4,60/75 min aeration on/off time） was evaluated.The results showed that depending on the specific on/off of the aeration time ratio,removal efficiency of nitrogen could be improved significantly,and the removal rates of total nitrogen（TN） under different operation conditions were 28.0%,59.5%,66.8% and 70.7%,respectively.There were no obvious differences for removal rates for CODCr and ammonia among different operation conditions.In general,intermittent aeration could be used as a feasible way to improve treatment performance for nitrogen in the SMBR.

Effects of Aeration Rates and Patterns on Shortcut Nitrification and Denitrification

The effects of aeration rates and aeration patterns on the oxidation of ammonia-nitrogen into nitrite were investigated. The influent high ammonia-nitrogen synthetic wastewater resembled to those of the catalytic process of the petrochemical refinery. The method involved the biological shortcut nitrification and denitrification lab-scale’s sequencing batch reactor (SBR) process based on intermittent aerations and aeration patterns. All the operations were carried out in a 20 L working volume SBR bioreactor, and the influent synthetic wastewater’s concentration was always 1000 mg/L ammonia-nitrogen NH4-N concentration at a C/N (carbon/nitrogen) ratio of 2.5:1. Effective shortcut nitrification to nitrite was registered at 1.1 mg-O2/L (i.e. 9 L-air/min) with 99.1% nitrification efficiency, 99.0% nitritation rate and 2.6 mg-NO3--N/L nitrate concentration. The best results with 99.3% nitrification efficiency were recorded when operating at 1.4 mg-O2/L (i.e. 12 L-air/min). According to these experiments, it results that the nitrite accumulation rate was related to aeration rate and cycle’s duration. However, at 1.7 mg-O2/L (i.e. 15 L-air/min), the system was limited by an increase in nitrate concentration with more than 5 mg/L which could be a point of reverse to conventional nitrification. The best total nitrogen (TN) removal was about 71.5%.

Effects of aeration method and aeration rate on greenhouse gas emissions during composting of pig feces in pilot scale

The aim of this study was to uncover ways to mitigate greenhouse gas（GHG） emissions and reduce energy consumption during the composting process. We assessed the effects of different aeration rates（0, 0.18, 0.36, and 0.54 L/（kg dry matter（dm）·min）） and methods（continuous and intermittent） on GHG emissions. Pig feces and corn stalks were mixed at a ratio of 7：1. The composting process lasted for 10 weeks, and the compost was turned approximately every 2 weeks. Results showed that both aeration rate and method significantly affected GHG emissions. Higher aeration rates increased NH3 and N2O losses,but reduced CH4 emissions. The exception is that the CH4 emission of the passive aeration treatment was lower than that of the low aeration rate treatment. Without forced aeration,the CH4 diffusion rates in the center of the piles were very low and part of the CH4 was oxidized in the surface layer. Intermittent aeration reduced NH3 and CH4 losses, but significantly increased N2 O production during the maturing periods. Intermittent aeration increased the nitrification/denitrification alternation and thus enhanced the N2 O production. Forced aeration treatments had higher GHG emission rates than the passive aeration treatment. Forced aeration accelerated the maturing process, but could not improve the quality of the end product. Compared with continuous aeration, intermittent aeration could increase the O2 supply efficiency and reduced the total GHG emission by 17.8%, and this reduction increased to 47.4% when composting was ended after 36 days.

Comparative study on microbial community in intermittently aerated sequencing batch reactors （SBR） and a traditional SBR treating digested piggery wastewater

A traditional sequencing batch reactor （SBR） and two intermittently aerated sequencing batch reactors （IASBRs） were parallelly operated for treating digested piggery wastewater. Their microbial communities were analyzed, and the nitrogen removal performance was compared during the long term run. IASBRs demonstrated higher removal rates of total nitrogen （TN） and ammonium nitrogen （NH4＋ -N） than the SBR, and also demonstrated higher resistance against TN shock load. It was found that the more switch times between aerobic/anoxic in an IASBR, the higher the removal rates of TN and NH4＋ N. All the reactors were predominated by Thauera, Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter, which were considered to be species of denitrifiers, ammonium oxidizing bacteria （AOB） and nitrite oxidizing bacteria （NOB）, respectively. However, the abundance and diversity was of great difference. Compared with SBR, IASBRs achieved higher abundance of denitrification related bacteria. IASBR 1# with four aerobic/anoxic switch times was detected with 25.63% of Thauera, higher than that in IASBR 2# with two aerobic/anoxic switch times （l 1.57% of Thauera）, and much higher than that in the SBR （only 6.19% of Thauera）. IASBR 2# had the highest percentage of AOB, while 1ASBR 1# had the lowest percentage. The denitrifiers abundance was significantly positive correlated with the TN removal rate. However, the NH4＋ N removal rate showed no significant correlation with the AOB abundance, but might relate to the AOB activity which was influenced by the average free ammonium （FA） concentration. Nitrobacter was the only NOB genus detectable in all reactors, and were less than 0.03%.

Removal of veterinary antibiotics from anaerobically digested swine wastewater using an intermittently aerated sequencing batch reactor

A lab-scale intermittently aerated sequencing batch reactor（IASBR）was applied to treat anaerobically digested swine wastewater（ADSW）to explore the removal characteristics of veterinary antibiotics.The removal rates of 11 veterinary antibiotics in the reactor were investigated under different chemical organic demand（COD）volumetric loadings,solid retention times（SRT）and ratios of COD to total nitrogen（TN）or COD/TN.Both sludge sorption and biodegradation were found to be the major contributors to the removal of veterinary antibiotics.Mass balance analysis revealed that greater than 60%of antibiotics in the influent were biodegraded in the IASBR,whereas averagely 24%were adsorbed by sludge under the condition that sludge sorption gradually reached its equilibrium.Results showed that the removal of antibiotics was greatly influenced by chemical oxygen demand（COD）volumetric loadings,which could achieve up to 85.1%±1.4%at 0.17±0.041 kg COD/m-3/day,while dropped to 75.9%±1.3%and 49.3%±12.1%when COD volumetric loading increased to 0.65±0.032 and1.07±0.073 kg COD/m-3/day,respectively.Tetracyclines,the dominant antibiotics in ADSW,were removed by 87.9%in total at the lowest COD loading,of which 30.4%were contributed by sludge sorption and 57.5%by biodegradation,respectively.In contrast,sulfonamides were removed about 96.2%,almost by biodegradation.Long SRT seemed to have little obvious impact on antibiotics removal,while a shorter SRT of 30–40 day could reduce the accumulated amount of antibiotics and the balanced antibiotics sorption capacity of sludge.Influent COD/TN ratio was found not a key impact factor for veterinary antibiotics removal in this work.

Advantages of intermittently aerated SBR over conventional SBR on nitrogen removal for the treatment of digested piggery wastewater

An intermittently aerated sequencing batch reactor （IASBR） and a traditional sequencing batch reactor （SBR） were parallelly constructed to treat digested piggery wastewater, which was in high NH4＋ -N concentration but in a low COD/TN ratio. Their pollutant removal perfonnance was compared under COD/TN ratios of 1.6-3.4 d and hydraulic retention times of 5 3 d. The results showed that the IASBR removed TN, NH4＋-N and TOC more efficiently than the SBR. The average removal rates of TN, NH4＋-N and TOC were 83.1%, 96.5%, and 89.0%, respectively, in the IASBR, significantly higher than the corresponding values of 74.8%, 82.0%, and 86.2%. in the SBR. Mass balance of organic carbon revealed that the higher TN removal in the IASBR might be attributed to its efficient utilization of the organic carbon for denitrification, since that 48.7%- 52.2% of COD was used for denitrification in the IASBR, higher than the corresponding proportion of 43.1%-47.4% in the SBR. A prc-anoxic process in the IASBR would enhance the ammonium oxidation while restrict the nitrite oxidation. Anoxic duration of 40-80 min should be beneficial for achieving stable nitritation.

Effectiveness of aerobic pretreatment of municipal solid waste for accelerating biogas generation during simulated landfilling

This study evaluates the effectiveness of aerobic pretreatment of municipal solid waste （MSW） on reducing lag phase and accelerating biogas generation. Aerobic pretreatment degree （APD） was determined on the basis of reduction in volatile solids （VS） on a wet weight basis. In this study, intermittent aeration （IA） was applied to three reactors as a main aeration mode; since a single reactor was operated under continuous aeration mode. However, the purpose of the experiment was to reduce VS content of waste, irrespective of the comparison between aeration modes. Fresh MSW was first pretreated aerobically with different aeration rates （10, 40, 60 and 85 L/min/m3） for the period of 30- 50 days, resulting in VS-loss equivalent to 20%, 27%, 38% and 53q4 on w/w basis for the wastes AI, A2, A3 and A4, respectively. The cumulative biogas production, calculated based on the modified Gompertz model were 384, 195, 353,215, and 114 L/kg VS for the wastes A0, A1, A2, A3 and A4, respectively. Untreated waste （A0） showed a long lag phase; whereas the lag phases of pretreated MSW were reduced by more than 90e/L Aerobically pretreated wastes reached stable methanogenic phase within 41 days compared to 418 days for untreated waste. The waste mass decreased by about 8% to 27% compared to untreated MSW, indicative that even more MSW could be placed in the same landfill. The study confirmed the effectiveness of aerobic pretreatment of MSW prior to landfilling on reducing lag phase and accelerating biogas generation.