The short-cut biological nitrogen removal process has been widely used in industrial wastewater treatment, and denitrification is a crucial step for removing nitrogen on which the effect of Cu2+, a common heavy metal ion in wastewater, has not been studied. In this study, sludge with good short-range biological nitrogen removal characteristics in an A/O reactor was selected to investigate the short-term and long-term effects of Cu2+ on denitrification using NO2- as an electron acceptor. The results showed that Cu2+ had a significant inhibitory effect on denitrification process using NO2- as an electron acceptor, and the semi-inhibitory concentration EC50 of sludge activity was 4.79 mg·L-1. In the long-term experiment, the concentration of Cu2+ was gradually increased. When the concentration of Cu2+ was 0.5 mg·L-1and 1 mg·L-1, the denitrification activity of the sludge could be restored to the original level after acclimation. When the concentration of Cu2+ was increased to 3 mg·L-1, the denitrification performance was destroyed and difficult to recover, at which point the NO2--N removal rate was reduced to less than 10% and the denitrification system was severely inhibited. However, there was some recovery of sludge denitrification capacity after the addition of Cu2+ had been stopped for 14 days. At the same time, during the long-term effect of Cu2+, the EPS content increased, which played an important role in protecting the microorganism against Cu2+ toxicity, and increased the sludge particle size and, as a result, sludge sedimentation.
Keywords: Cu2+; NO2-; denitrification; long-term effect; short-term effect.