Nitrite Accumulation Characteristics and Quantitative Analyses of Nitrifying and Denitrifying Bacteria in a Sequencing Batch Reactor

연속회분반응기의 아질산 축적 특성과 질산화 및 탈질 미생물의 정량적 분포 연구

  • Kim, Dong-Jin (Department of Environmental Sciences and Biotechnology, Hallym University) ;
  • Kwon, Hyun-Jin (Department of Environmental Sciences and Biotechnology, Hallym University) ;
  • Yoon, Jung-Yee (Department of Environmental Sciences and Biotechnology, Hallym University) ;
  • Cha, Gi-Cheol (Department of Environmental Engineering, Yonsei University)
  • 김동진 (한림대학교 환경생명공학과) ;
  • 권현진 (한림대학교 환경생명공학과) ;
  • 윤정이 (한림대학교 환경생명공학과) ;
  • 차기철 (연세대학교 환경공학과)
  • Received : 2008.02.12
  • Accepted : 2008.03.25
  • Published : 2008.05.30

Abstract

Recently, the interests on economical nitrogen removal from wastewater are growing. As a method of the novel nitrogen removal technology, nitrogen removal via nitrite pathway by selective inhibition of free ammonia and free nitrous acid on nitrite oxidizing bacteria have been intensively studied. The inhibition effects of free ammonia and free nitrous acid are low when domestic wastewater is used, however, because of its relatively lower nitrogen concentration than the wastewater from industry and landfill, etc. In this study, a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) is proposed for nitrogen removal to investigate the effect of the low nitrogen concentration on nitrite accumulation. Nitrification efficiency reached almost 100% during the aerobic cycle and the maximum specific nitrification rate ($V_{max,nit}$) reached $17.8mg\;NH_4{^+}-N/g\;MLVSS{\bullet}h$. During the anoxic cycle, average denitrification efficiency reached 87% and the maximum specific denitrification rate ($V_{max,den}$) reached $9.8mg\;NO_3{^-}-N/g\;MLVSS{\bullet}h$. From the analysis the main reason of nitrite accumulation in the SBR was free nitrous acid rather than free ammonia. Nitrite accumulation increased with the decrease of organic content in the wastewater and the mechanism is not well understood yet. From the result of fluorescent in situ hybridization, the distribution of nitrite oxidizing bacteria was in equilibrium with ammonium oxidizing bacteria when nitrite accumulation did not occur.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

Supported by : 한국학술진흥재단

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