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The selective salinity and hydrazine parameters for the start-up of non-anammox-specific biomass SBR

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Abstract

The presence of ammonium (NH4+) in wastewater above the permissible limits leads to undesirable ecological impact and public health concerns. In this study, the anaerobic ammonium oxidizing (anammox) bacteria-mediated nitrogen removal was investigated using a sequential batch reactor (SBR). Effects of different salinity levels were evaluated on the bacterial activity at: mild (below 0.2 g NaCl/L), elevated (18.2 g NaCl/L) and suitable salinity (2–0.5 g NaCl/L) levels mimicking the environmental conditions that are present in real wastewater. Within a suitable salinity period of 0.5–2 g NaCl/L, the highest average total nitrogen removal efficiencies (TNREs) and total nitrogen removal rates (TNRRs) of 67 (± 11)% and 37 (± 29) g N/m3/d, respectively, were achieved. In addition to the salinity tests, the effect of relatively high nitrite levels (> 40 mg N/L) was observed in the reactor resulting in the decrease in anammox activity, but increasing biomass potential for the treatment of high nitrite containing wastewater. Interestingly, the supplementation of hydrazine at 7.5 mg N2H4/L indicated enhanced anammox activity with a nitrogen removal rate of 0.7 ± 0.01 mg N/g MLSS/h, while test without hydrazine showed a rate of 0.68 ± 0.06 mg N/g MLSS/h. Therefore, denitrifying activity decreased with the addition of hydrazine, which on the other hand benefits the anammox start-up. Illumina sequencing analysis revealed that the microbial community has changed with the rise of the salinity levels and was dominated with Anaerolineae, Gammaproteobacteria, Clostridia and various key anammox organisms, such as Candidatus Brocadia and Candidatus Kuenenia strains (at 3%).

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by Project No. T190087MIMV and European Commission, MLTKT19481R “Identifying best available technologies for decentralized wastewater treatment and resource recovery for India, Estonian Investment Center project SLTKT20427 “Sewage sludge treatment from heavy metals, emerging pollutants and recovery of metals by fungi” and by project KIK 15392 and 15401 by European Commission. Financial support of these studies from Gdańsk University of Technology by the DEC-6/2021/IDUB/II. 2/Sc/035336 grant under the SCANDIUM—“Excellence Initiative—Research University” program and from University of Tartu Development fund PLTKT ARENG53. SCANDIUM project and project “Improving quality of BSR waters by advanced treatment processes” from INTERREG fund are gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Chemistry, University of Tartu, 14a Ravila St, 50411, Tartu, Estonia

    I. Zekker, E. Rikmann, R. Kumar & T. Tenno

  2. Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, 40 Lai St, 51005, Tartu, Estonia

    J. Oja & S. Anslan

  3. Department of Processing Engineering and Chemical Technology, Gdansk University of Technology, Gdańsk, Gabriela Narutowicza 11/12, 80-233, Gdansk, Poland

    A. F. Borzyszkowska & A. Zielińska-Jurek

  4. EcoTech Center, Gdańsk University of Technology, G. Narutowicza 11/12, 80-233, Gdansk, Poland

    A. F. Borzyszkowska & A. Zielińska-Jurek

  5. National Center of Excellence in Physical Chemistry, University of Peshawar, Peshawar, Pakistan

    L. A. Shah

  6. Department of Chemistry, AWKUM, 23200, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

    M. Naeem

  7. Department of Biochemistry, University of Malakand, 18800, Chakdara Dir Lower, KPK, Pakistan

    M. Zahoor

  8. Graduate School of Renewable Energy, Darma Persada University, Jl. Radin Inten 2, Pondok Kelapa, East Jakarta, 13450, Indonesia

    R. H. Setyobudi

  9. Department of Agricultural and Food Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, 721302, India

    G. D. Bhowmick

  10. Department of Chemistry, Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Women University, 25000, Peshawar, Pakistan

    R. Khattak

  11. Chair of Rural Building and Water Management, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Kreutzwaldi 5, 51014, Tartu, Estonia

    J. Burlakovs

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The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests:

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Zekker, I., Rikmann, E., Oja, J. et al. The selective salinity and hydrazine parameters for the start-up of non-anammox-specific biomass SBR. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 20, 12597–12610 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-023-05055-9

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