Simultaneous denitrification and denitrifying phosphorus removal in a full-scale anoxic–oxic process without internal recycle treating low strength wastewater

Performance of a full-scale anoxic-oxic activated sludge treatment plant（4.0×10-5 m-3/day for the first-stage project） was followed during a year.The plant performed well for the removal of carbon,nitrogen and phosphorus in the process of treating domestic wastewater within a temperature range of 10.8℃ to 30.5℃.Mass balance calculations indicated that COD utilization mainly occurred in the anoxic phase,accounting for 88.2% of total COD removal.Ammonia nitrogen removal occurred 13.71% in the anoxic zones and 78.77% in the aerobic zones.The contribution of anoxic zones to total nitrogen（TN） removal was 57.41%.Results indicated that nitrogen elimination in the oxic tanks was mainly contributed by simultaneous nitrification and denitrification（SND）.The reduction of phosphorus mainly took place in the oxic zones,51.45% of the total removal.Denitrifying phosphorus removal was achieved biologically by 11.29%.Practical experience proved that adaptability to gradually changing temperature of the microbial populations was important to maintain the plant overall stability.Sudden changes in temperature did not cause paralysis of the system just lower removal efficiency,which could be explained by functional redundancy of microorganisms that may compensate the adverse effects of temperature changes to a certain degree.Anoxic-oxic process without internal recycling has great potential to treat low strength wastewater（i.e.,TN 〈 35 mg/L） as well as reducing operation costs.

Influence of phenol on ammonia removal in an intermittent aeration bioreactor treating biologically pretreated coal gasification wastewater

A laboratory-scale intermittent aeration bioreactor was investigated to treat biologically pretreated coal gasification wastewater that was mainly composed of NH_3-N and phenol.The results showed that increasing phenol loading had an adverse effect on NH_3-N removal;the concentration in effluent at phenol loading of 40 mg phenol/（L·day） was 7.3 mg/L, 36.3%of that at 200 mg phenol/（L·day）. The enzyme ammonia monooxygenase showed more sensitivity than hydroxylamine oxidoreductase to the inhibitory effect of phenol, with32.2% and 10.5% activity inhibition, respectively at 200 mg phenol/（L·day）. Owing to intermittent aeration conditions, nitritation-type nitrification and simultaneous nitrification and denitrification（SND） were observed, giving a maximum SND efficiency of 30.5%.Additionally, ammonia oxidizing bacteria（AOB） and denitrifying bacteria were the main group identified by fluorescent in situ hybridization. However, their relative abundance represented opposite variations as phenol loading increased, ranging from 30.1% to 17.5%and 7.6% to 18.2% for AOB and denitrifying bacteria, respectively.

Nitrogen removal from coal gasification wastewater by activated carbon technologies combined with short-cut nitrogen removal process

A system combining granular activated carbon and powdered activated carbon technologies along with shortcut biological nitrogen removal （GAC-PACT-SBNR） was developed to enhance total nitrogen （TN） removal for anaerobically treated coal gasification wastewater with less need for external carbon resources. The TN removal efficiency in SBNR was significantly improved by introducing the effluent from the GAC process into SBNR during the anoxic stage, with removal percentage increasing from 43.8%49.6% to 68.8%-75.8%. However, the TN removal rate decreased with the progressive deterioration of GAC adsorption. After adding activated sludge to the GAG compartment, the granular carbon had a longer service-life and the demand for external carbon resources became lower. Eventually, the TN removal rate in SBNR was almost constant at approx. 43.3%, as compared to approx. 20.0% before seeding with sludge. In addition, the production of some alkalinity during the denitrification resulted in a net savings in alkalinity requirements for the nitrification reaction and refractory chemical oxygen demand （COD） degradation by autotrophic bacteria in SBNR under oxic conditions. PACT showed excellent resilience to increasing organic loadings. The microbial community analysis revealed that the PACT had a greater variety of bacterial taxons and the dominant species associated with the three compartments were in good agreement with the removal of typical pollutants. The study demonstrated that pre-adsorption by the GAC-sludge process could be a technically and economically feasible method to enhance TN removal in coal gasification wastewater （CGW）.