Resilience of anammox application from sidestream to mainstream: A combined system coupling denitrification, partial nitritation and partial denitrification with anammox

Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) is a potential process to achieve the neutralization of energy and carbon. Due to the low temperature and variation of municipal sewage, the application of mainstream anammox is hard to be implemented. For spreading mainstream anammox in practice, several key issues and bottlenecks including the start-up, stable NO2--N supply, maintenance and dominance of AnAOB with high activity, pre-vention of NO3--N buildup, reduction of sludge loss, adaption to the seasonal temperature and alleviation of COD impacts on AnAOB are discussed and summarized in this review in order to improve its startup, stable operation and resilience of mainstream anammox. Hence a combined biological nitrogen removal (CBNR) system based on conventional denitrification, shortcut nitrification-denitrification, Partial Nitritation and partial Denitrification combined Anammox (PANDA) process through the management of organic matter and nitrate is proposed correspondingly aiming at adaptation to the variations of seasonal temperature and pollutants in influent.

Automated summary

This review article discusses the key issues and bottlenecks in the implementation of mainstream anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox), including startup, stable NO2--N supply, maintenance and dominance of AnAOB with high activity, prevention of NO3--N buildup, reduction of sludge loss, adaptation to seasonal temperature variations, and alleviation of COD impacts on AnAOB. In order to improve the startup, stable operation, and resilience of mainstream anammox, a combined biological nitrogen removal (CBNR) system based on conventional denitrification, shortcut nitrification-denitrification, partial nitritation, and partial denitrification combined with anammox (PANDA) process is proposed to adapt to the variations of seasonal temperature and pollutants in the influent.