Effectiveness of oxidation-reduction potential and pH as monitoring and control parameters for nitrogen removal in swine wastewater treatment by sequencing batch reactors

Two bench-scale sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) were operated in a fixed hydraulic retention time study to investigate the effectiveness of oxidation-reduction potential (ORP), pH and dissolved oxygen as parameters for indicating denitrification followed by nitrification in SBRs for swine wastewater treatment. The ORP and pH profiles were monitored and evaluated under different denitrification and nitrification conditions with and without a supplemental carbon source. With a low C/N ratio, and using a suitable C/N ratio adjustment control, ORP and pH could be used as monitoring and control parameters in both the anoxic and oxic phases for practical swine wastewater treatment. High-level accumulation of nitrate was observed without any C/N ratio adjustment. In this case, ORP and pH were not useful for monitoring denitrification followed by nitrification in SBRs. According to our research, with regard to N removal, it would be better to use pH as a parameter during the oxic phase and ORP as a parameter during the anoxic phase. Using a suitable adjustment of a C/N ratio in the influent by adding swine slurry, a high total nitrogen removal efficiency of up to 95.5% was reached. It was found that, in this case, the use of ORP and pH as parameters for real-time control processes was possible in swine wastewater treatment.