Large-scale (500 kg N/day) two-stage partial nitritation/anammox (PN/A) process for liquid-ammonia mercerization wastewater treatment: Rapid start-up and long-term operational performance

Zhenguo Chen; Xiaojun Wang; Songwei Zhou; Junhao Fan; Yongxing Chen

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.116404

Large-scale (500 kg N/day) two-stage partial nitritation/anammox (PN/A) process for liquid-ammonia mercerization wastewater treatment: Rapid start-up and long-term operational performance

J Environ Manage. 2023 Jan 15;326(Pt A):116404. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.116404. Epub 2022 Nov 11.

Authors

Zhenguo Chen¹, Xiaojun Wang², Songwei Zhou³, Junhao Fan³, Yongxing Chen⁴

Affiliations

¹ SCNU Environmental Research Institute, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Chemical Pollution and Environmental Safety & MOE Key Laboratory of Theoretical Chemistry of Environment, School of Environment, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510006, PR China.
² School of Environment and Energy, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510006, China; The Key Lab of Pollution Control and Ecosystem Restoration in Industry Clusters, Ministry of Education, China. Electronic address: cexjwang@scut.edu.cn.
³ Hua an Biotech Co., Ltd., Foshan 528300, China.
⁴ School of Environment and Energy, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510006, China; The Key Lab of Pollution Control and Ecosystem Restoration in Industry Clusters, Ministry of Education, China.

PMID: 36375427
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.116404

Abstract

The nitrogen pollution control of liquid-ammonia mercerization wastewater (LMWW) is one of the typical obstacle restricting the sustainability of textile industry. In this study, a 500 kg N/day two-stage partial nitritation/anammox (PN/A) process containing PN reactor filled with zeolite and biofilm anammox reactors was successfully started up in 45 days and operated stably with high shock resistance over one year for LMWW treatment. The large-scale process achieved an average ammonium removal efficiency (94.3 ± 2.3%), total nitrogen removal efficiency (89.4 ± 2.7%) and nitrogen removal rate (1.003 ± 0.386 kg N/m³/day) during one year engineering operation. Simultaneous denitrification was revealed by the contribution of 5.2% total nitrogen removed. High-throughput sequencing results showed that Nitrosomonas was the most dominant genus in PN reactor, and Ca. Anammoxoglobus and Ca. Kuenenia were the functional bacteria for nitrogen removal in anammox reactors. Compared to traditional nitrification-denitrification process, the large-scale process reduced a total operational cost of 46.03 CNY/kg N for LMWW. This study revealed the proposed process was quite reliable with fast start-up and high impact resistance to overcome the obstacle of nitrogen pollution control for LMWW economically and conducive to the sustainable development for textile industry.

Keywords: Large-scale; Liquid-ammonia mercerization; Microbial community; Nitrogen removal; PN/A process; Textile.

MeSH terms

Ammonia
Ammonium Compounds*
Anaerobic Ammonia Oxidation
Bioreactors / microbiology
Denitrification
Nitrogen
Oxidation-Reduction
Sewage
Wastewater*

Substances

Waste Water
Ammonia
Ammonium Compounds
Nitrogen
Sewage