Improving denitrification performance of biofilm technology with salt-tolerant denitrifying bacteria agent for treating high-strength nitrate and sulfate wastewater from lab-scale to pilot-scale

Abstract

This study focused on the application of salt-tolerant denitrifying bacteria (DBA) in an optimized biofilm process to treat high sulfate-nitrate wastewater from lab-scale to pilot-scale. Lab-scale results demonstrated the salinity, DBA inoculum, supplementary carbon and phosphorus source significantly varied the startup periods at the range of 36-74 d, and the optimum initial start-up conditions were as follows: >0.6 g/L of DBA, 2-4 of C/N ratio, 0.3-0.6 mg/L of phosphorus and a salinity-gradient domestication method. A pilot scale of biofilm technology with DBA was further developed for treating real wastewater from the desulfuration and denitration with both high nitrate (≈200 mg/L) and sulfate (2.7%). The denitrification efficiency reached above 90% after one-month gradient-salinity of 0.5%-2.7%. Mature biofilm had dominant genera Hyphomicrobium (31.80%-61.35%), Methylotenera (0.85%-20.21%) and Thauera (1.42%-8.40%), etc. Notably, the largest genera Hyphomicrobium covered the complete denitrification genes.

Keywords: Biofilm; Denitrification; Nitrogen; Salinity; Salt-tolerant bacteria.