The start-up and stable operation of single-stage autotrophic nitrogen removal process under low ammonia nitrogen substrate at room temperature appears as the premise and basis for the application in municipal wastewater treatment. In this study, the PN/A (partial nitritation and ANAMMOX) granular sludge for long-term storage was inoculated into an air-lift bioreactor to investigate the nitrogen removal performance during the start-up of single-stage partial nitritation and ANAMMOX process under the following conditions:temperature at (23±2)℃, pH at 7.7-8.0. Synthetic wastewater with ammonia nitrogen concentration of 70 mg·L-1 was used as influent. By stepwise shortening hydraulic retention time (HRT) (1.1 h→0.9 h→0.7 h→0.5 h) and increasing ammonia nitrogen loading rate[1.53 kg·(m3·d)-1→1.87 kg·(m3·d)-1→2.40 kg·(m3·d)-1→3.36 kg·(m3·d)-1], the bioactivity as the synergy between the ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and anaerobic oxidizing bacteria (AMX) were gradually restored. After 95 d operation and regulation, the process was successfully established and the removal rate of NH4+-N and TN were 85% and 69%, respectively. According to the performance of sludge at each stage, the nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB) were selectively inhibited by controlling dissolved oxygen strictly. The average particle size gradually increased and finally was reached to 1.30 mm after the sludge was adapted to the environment. The profile of the mature autotrophic granular sludge was smooth and clear, SEM showed that the center of granular sludge formed a cavity with porous structure on the surface, the sludge morphology consisted mainly of cocci, with a small amount of bacilli and short bacilli. The major component of EPS in granular sludge was protein (81.48%) indicating that it had a good settling performance.
Keywords: extracellular polymeric substances(EPS); granular sludge; partial nitritation and ANAMMOX; room temperature; sludge morphology.