The addition of external carbon source for nitrogen removal from wastewater is an essential step in wastewater treatment. In this study, various external carbon sources from the fermentation of primary sludge (PS), thickened waste activated sludge (TWAS), food waste (FW), bakery processing & kitchen waste (BP + KW), fat, oil, & grease (FOG), and whey powder (WP) were successfully employed for wastewater denitrification. Methanol and acetate were also used as controls due to their common use as external carbon sources for wastewater denitrification. The denitrification performance and kinetics such as the specific denitrification rate (SDNR), denitrification potential (PDN), and the biomass yield were studied at a constant TVFA as COD/N ratio of 5 for all substrates. Complete denitrification was achieved with a NO3--N removal efficiency of 98-99%, and no NO2- accumulation was observed at the end of the experiments for all substrates. The results revealed that the liquid fermentation filtrates exhibited higher SDNRs than methanol and acetate. This indicates the high organic matter utilization efficiency and better denitrification ability of fermentation filtrates over conventional carbon sources. WP exhibited the highest SDNR of 17.6 mg NOx - N/g VSS/h, which is approximately four times that of methanol (4.6 mg NOx - N/g VSS/h). The other carbon sources had SDNRs two to three times higher than that of methanol. However, the fermentation filtrates exhibited higher biomass yields of 0.26-0.37 mg VSS/mg COD compared to methanol of 0.21 mg VSS/mg COD, which could lead to higher sludge handling costs. Moreover, methanol exhibited higher PDN of 0.25 g N/g COD compared to all the fermentation filtrates.
Keywords: Anaerobic fermentation; Anoxic yield; Carbon source; Denitrification potential; Denitrification rate; Volatile fatty acids.
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