Journal
WATER RESEARCH
Volume 224, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2022.119074
Keywords
Nitritation; Ammonia -based aeration control; Enhanced biological phosphorus removal; Biological nutrient removal; Transcriptomics; Metabolomics
Funding
- National Science Foundation [CBET-1705728]
- U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture Hatch program [IDA01585, IDA01720]
- Idaho Global Entrepreneurial Mission (IGEM) [IGEM19-001]
- U.S. Department of Agri-culture National Institute of Food and Agriculture [2018-67022-27894]
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This study demonstrates that partial nitritation can be achieved and maintained by adjusting the conditions of nitritation and nitrification, using mixed microbial consortia cultured on real wastewater, leading to effective wastewater treatment with good effluent quality.
Water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) increasingly must maximize nitrogen and phosphorus removal, but concurrently face challenges to reduce their energy usage and environmental footprint. In particular, biological nutrient removal (BNR), which targets removal of phosphorus and nitrogen, exhibits a large energy demand. However, a BNR process achieving partial oxidation of NH3 to NO2 (nitritation) could reduce energy demands, with secondary environmental emission benefits. Research was conducted on bench-scale systems performing nitritation and nitrification to better understand how mixed microbial consortia, cultured on real wastewater, can sustain nitritation. BNR configurations achieved nitrite accumulation ratios of 64-82%, with excellent overall effluent quality. Applying phylogenetic, transcriptomic, and metabolomic methods, coupled with process monitoring, results indicate that partial nitritation may be induced through a combination of: (1) Employing ammonia-based aeration control, with an ammonia setpoint of 2, 3 mgN/L; (2) Maintaining an aerobic period DO of 1.0-2.0 mg/L; and (3) Operating BNR post-anoxically, integrated within enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR). Significant nitritation was achieved despite the presence Nitrobacter spp., but nitrite oxidoreductase must be functionally impaired or structurally incomplete. Overall, this research demonstrated the value of interrogating a mixed microbial consortia at a macro and molecular level to explore unique metabolic responses such as nitritation.
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