INFLUENCE OF INCREASING NITROGEN LOADING RATE ON THE PERFORMANCE
OF anammox COLUMN REACTOR WITH GRANULAR SLUDGE
De Prá, M. C. 1; Kunz, A.2,3; Scussiato, L. A. J.; Dias4, R. 3; Mores, C. R. 5; Jacinto, I. C. 4;
and Soares, H. M. 1
1
Department of Chemical Engineering, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis-SC, Brazil, (e-
mail: marinacdepra@[Link], soares@[Link] )
2
Embrapa Swine and Poultry, Concórdia-SC, Brazil, (e-mail: [Link]@[Link])
3
Department of Agricultural Engineering, PGEAGRI/CCET-Unioeste, Cascavel, PR, Brazil, (e-mail:
[Link]@[Link])
4
Department of Environmental Engineering, University of Contestado, Concórdia-SC, Brazil, (e-mail:
jessicarosadias@[Link], ismachimanko7@[Link])
5
Department of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis-SC, Brazil, (e-mail:
carinermores@[Link])
Abstract
The anaerobic ammonium oxidation (ANAMMOX) process is well suited for treatment of
concentrated effluents with low carbon/nitrogen ratio, as digestate swine wastewater for
example, because in addition to its efficiency, can achieve high nitrogen loading rates
(NLR). In this study, an ANAMMOX column reactor with granular sludge was operated to
investigate the performance of nitrogen removal rate (NRR) when submitted to high load
rate and low HRTs. The experiment was performed in a reactor with stable ANAMMOX
activity and fed with synthetic medium at 200 mg-NT L-1. A high-rate performance with
nitrogen removal rate of 9.24 Kg-N m -3 d-1 was achieved for the lab-scale ANAMMOX
column reactor when fed with 12.30 Kg-N m -3 d-1. As the reactor not dragged in the effluent
solids, is possible to work with HRT even lower than 0.6 h, to remove a larger NRR and
apply the process to digestate wastewater.
Keywords
ANAMMOX; digestate wastewater; granular sludge; hydraulic retention time; nitrogen
loading rate; nitrogen removal;
INTRODUCTION
With the arrival of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), which account for a
large number of animals in small areas, many environmental problems began to appear. In
the swine production for example, the high carbon and nitrogen loading rates (NLR),
coupled with the large volume of wastewater, are the biggest challenges of management
activity (Kunz et al., 2009).
Currently, many techniques for carbon removal in wastewater already consolidated, most
based on anaerobic digestion, resulting in an effluent with low carbon/nitrogen ratio. The
lack of carbon makes it difficult to remove the nitrogen soluble by conventional process of
nitrification-desnitrification. Moreover, when have concentrated effluents, there are
difficulties in the design and operation of the conventional system, which is why there have
been new proposals to perform this treatment.
During the last decade, the ANAMMOX process has evolves from a largely unexplored
part of the biological nitrogen cycle, making it a key part in the global same cycle. The
process is the direct oxidation of ammonium to nitrogen gas using nitrite as electron
acceptor. The process occurs in anoxic conditions, temperatures between 20 and 43 °C
and there are reversible inhibition in the presence of oxygen. It offers several advantages
over conventional nitrification-denitrification systems, including lower operational cost, less
space requirement and higher nitrogen removal rate (NRR) with very low hydraulic
retention time (HTRs) (Jetten et al., 2005; Tang et al., 2011).
High-rate is one of the prime objectives for ANAMMOX process. The NRR of conventional
nitrogen removal biotechnologies was less than 0.5 kg-N m -3 day-1 (Jin et al., 2012), while
for ANAMMOX process, it was higher than 5 kg-N m -3 day-1 as obtained by a number of
researchers using different reactors (Isaka et al., 2007; Tang et al., 2011; Jetten et al.,
2005).
In the present study, an ANAMMOX column reactor with granular sludge was operated to
investigate the performance of nitrogen removal when submitted to high load rate and low
HRTs.
MATERIAL AND METHODS
Reactor setup and operation
The experiment was performed in a column reactor with stable ANAMMOX activity (Figure
1) and useful volume of 2.4 L, temperature controlled at 35 oC and dissolved oxygen
concentration below 0.2 mg/L. The reactor worked in a continuous ascending plug and
flow regime. The reactor was fed with synthetic medium, where ammonium and nitrite
were supplemented in the form of NH 4Cl (100 mg L-1) and NaNO2 (100 mg L-1),
respectively. The composition of other nutrients was CaCl 2.2H2O (143 mg L-1), NaHCO3
(420 mg L-1), KH2PO4 (27 mg L-1), FeSO4 (9 mg L-1), EDTA (5 mg L-1), MgSO4 (240 mg L-1)
and trace elements solution (0.3 mL L-1).
Samples were collected from influent and effluent and the system monitoring was
performed by analysis of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, all according to the methodology
established by APHA, 2012.
Figure 1. Experimental system of the ANAMMOX column reactor.
Nitrogen Loading Rate (NLR) increasing
The loading rate was increased reducing the HRT (Table 1), keeping the concentration of
nitrogen feed constant (200 mg-NT L -1). The HRT was reduced when the ammonia and
nitrite output remained below 15 mg L-1.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Figure 2 shows the monitoring of nitrogen forms (B) and nitrogen removal rate (NRR) of
the AMX column reactor during the experiment (A). During phase I, operating with a HRT
of 2.7 h and NLR of 1.72 kg-N m -3 d-1 ± 0.06, the reactor achieved a NRR of 1.37 kg-N m -3
d-1 ± 0.05 (Figure 1A), demonstrating stability for to begin NLR increasing by reducing the
HRT in the system.
Table 1. NLR increased by the HRT reducing during the experiment.
Phases Period (days) HRT (h) Q (L d-1) NLR (Kg-N/m-3 d-1)
(I) 0–6 2.7 21.6 1.80
(II) 7–14 1.6 34.5 2,88
(III) 15–25 1.3 43.6 3,63
(IV) 26-33 1.0 57.1 4.76
(V) 34-39 0.8 72.0 6.00
(VI) 40-44 0.6 96.0 8.00
(VII) 45-48 0.4 150 12.50
A
(I) (II) (III) (IV) (V) (VI)
(VII)
Figure 2. (A) Profile of nitrogen removal rate with increasing in nitrogen loading rate. (B) Profile of nitrogen
concentration forms during the experiment.
The begging of NLR increasing is represented by period II (Figure 1A), when the feed load
was 2.83 Kg-N m-3 d-1 and the NRR was 2.18 Kg-N m -3 d-1 ± 0.12. In the Period III, the
reactor was feeding with 3.76 Kg-N m-3 d-1 and the NRR was 2.97 Kg-N m-3 d-1 ± 0.19. In
the Period IV, the NLR was 4.82 Kg-N m-3 d-1 and the NRR was 3.77 Kg-N m-3 d-1 ± 0.16. In
the Period V, the NLR was 6.02 Kg-N m -3 d-1 and the NRR was 4.72 Kg-N m-3 d-1 ± 0.36. In
the period VI, the reactor was feeding with 7.6 Kg-N m -3 d-1 and the NRR was 5.76 Kg-N m-
3 -1
d ± 0.37.
Finally, the high NRR of the AMX column reactor was 9.24 Kg-N m -3 d-1, in the Period VI,
at 48 days of operation (Figure 2A), which is 5.4 times more than the initial conditions of
the experiment and larger than is found by some other researchers (Zhang et al., 2010;
Tang et al., 2011, Isaka et al., 2007).
In Figure 2B, it can be seen that the ANAMMOX activity persisted during the experiment.
In all periods, with the HTR reduction, destabilization occurred in the system and the
ammonia and nitrite concentrations increased in the reactor effluent. After a short
adaptation period, the concentrations returned to less than 15 mg L -1 in the effluent of the
reactor (Figure 2B).
Another important fact is that even working with low HRTs, was not observed drag of
solids in the effluent. The retention of biomass in the reactor is an important control
parameter, owing the low doubling time of ANAMMOX bacteria. Previous works on
anaerobic processes including anaerobic digestion (Thiele et al., 1990; Tang et al., 2011)
attributed high volumetric removal rates to firstly, they have high-quality sludge retention
for sufficient biomass accumulation and secondly, the microbial communities should
aggregate as granular sludge or biofilms for optimum metabolic activity. Figure 2 shows
the evolution of the biomass in the ANAMMOX column reactor during the experiment.
Positive change it can be seen both in its granular morphology, as the color vividness of
bacteria during the experiment period.
day 1 day 20 day 30 day 48
Figure 2. Apparent characteristics of the sludge at different periods during the experiment.
CONCLUSIONS
A high-rate performance with nitrogen removal rate of 9.24 Kg-N m-3 d-1 was achieved for
the lab-scale ANAMMOX column reactor when fed with 12.30 Kg-N m-3 d-1 and 0.6 h of
HRT. As the reactor not dragged in the effluent solids, is possible to work with HRT even
lower than 0.6 h, to remove a larger NRR and apply the process to digestate wastewater.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Authors thanks financial support from CAPES.
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