Evaluating the feasibility of ratio control strategy for achieving partial nitritation in a continuous floccular sludge reactor: Experimental demonstration

Abstract

To investigate the applicability of ratio control strategy to other systems, a continuous floccular sludge reactor was used in this study. It was found that nitrite accumulation was barely detected throughout 70days' investigation, being the average concentration in the effluent of 0.7±0.4mg/L. Batch experiments indicated that low dissolved oxygen (DO<0.3mg·L^-1) greatly repressed the ammonium oxidizing bacteria (AOB) but only slightly inhibited the nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB). However, high-throughput sequencing revealed that the ratio of abundance between Nitrospira and Nitrosomonas, being the dominant NOB and AOB respectively, was considerably low (1.2%/18.7%). The weak oxygen gradients in floccular sludge and the selectively enriched K-strategist NOB Nitrospira under oxygen-limited conditions were both contributed to the failure of achieving partial nitritation; therefore, the rapid start-up of partial nitritation process based on proposed ratio control strategy is not feasible for continuous floccular sludge systems treating low-strength wastewater.

Keywords: Ammonium excess; Flocs; Low dissolved oxygen; Nitrosomonas; Nitrospira; Partial nitritation.