Autotrophic Ammonia Removal Processes: Ecology to Technology

The last decade has witnessed rapid spur in technoeconomic autotrophic ammonia removal technologies for wastewater treatment such as SHARON, ANAMMOX, SNAD, CANON, OLAND, DEMON, and BABE. These technologies have the potential to remove high concentrations of ammonia in wastewaters. Despite their high removal efficiency, the quantum of full-scale applications of these processes is far from trivial. The issues that create a bottleneck in the application of such processes are often overlooked. Recent discoveries made in marine anaerobic niches provide some clues for resolving the problems faced while implementing these processes commercially. Some thoughts on the future research areas are also presented.