Investigation of Wood Chips as Internal Carbon Source Supporting Denitrification Process in Domestic Wastewater Treatment

Nitrogen removal from wastewater is accomplished by nitrification and denitrification processes. Successful denitrification requires carbon, therefore, if placed after biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and nitrification process, a carbon source has to be re-introduced into the water. To avoid adding a carbon source, denitrification is usually placed before BOD and nitrification processes. This process however involves recycling the nitrified effluent. In this study wood chips were used as internal carbon source which enabled placement of denitrification after BOD and nitrification process without effluent recycling. To investigate the efficiency of a wood packed aerobic-anaerobic baffled reactor on carbon and nutrients removal from domestic wastewater, a three compartment baffled reactor was presented. Each of the three compartments was packed with 329 g wood chips 1x1cm acting as an internal carbon source for denitrification. The proposed mode of operation was aerobic-anoxic-anaerobic (OAA) with no effluent recycling. The operating temperature, hydraulic retention time (HRT), dissolved oxygen (DO) and pH were 24 ± 2 , 24 h, less than 4 mg/L and 7 ± 1 respectively. The removal efficiencies of chemical oxygen demand (COD), ammonia nitrogen (NH4+-N) and total nitrogen (TN) attained was 99, 87 and 83% respectively. TN removal rate was limited by nitrification as 97% of ammonia converted into nitrate and nitrite was denitrified. These results show that application of wood chips in wastewater treatment processes is an efficient internal carbon source. 





References:
[1] M. H. G. Nadais, M. I. A. Capela, L. M. G. Arroja, and Y.-T. Hung, "Anaerobic treatment of milk processing wastewater," in Environmental Bioengineering, ed: Springer, 2010, pp. 555-627.
[2] W. P. Barber and D. C. Stuckey, "The use of the anaerobic baffled reactor (ABR) for wastewater treatment: A review," Water Research, vol. 33, 1999, pp. 1559-1578.
[3] C. Mendes, K. Esquerre, and L. M. Queiroz, "Modeling simultaneous carbon and nitrogen removal (SCNR) in anaerobic/anoxic reactor treating domestic wastewater," Journal of environmental management, vol. 177, 2016, pp. 119-128.
[4] M. Reza and M. A. Cuenca, "Nitrification and denitrifying phosphorus removal in an upright continuous flow reactor," Water Science and Technology, vol. 73, 2016, pp. 2093-2100.
[5] T. Kuba, M. Van Loosdrecht, and J. Heijnen, "Phosphorus and nitrogen removal with minimal COD requirement by integration of denitrifying dephosphatation and nitrification in a two-sludge system," Water research, vol. 30, 1996, pp. 1702-1710.
[6] M. R. Templeton and D. Butler, Introduction to Wastewater Treatment: Bookboon, 2011.
[7] R. Xu, Y. Fan, Y. Wei, Y. Wang, N. Luo, M. Yang, et al., "Influence of carbon sources on nutrient removal in A 2/O-MBRs: Availability assessment of internal carbon source," Journal of Environmental Sciences, 2016.
[8] Z. Zhou, X. Shen, L.-M. Jiang, Z. Wu, Z. Wang, W. Ren, et al., "Modeling of multimode anaerobic/anoxic/aerobic wastewater treatment process at low temperature for process optimization," Chemical Engineering Journal, vol. 281, 2015, pp. 644-650.
[9] A. J. Justo, L. Junfeng, S. Lili, W. Haiman, M. R. Lorivi, M. O. Mohammed, et al., "Integrated expanded granular sludge bed and sequential batch reactor treating beet sugar industrial wastewater and recovering bioenergy," Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 2016, pp. 1-9.
[10] H. Xiang, X. Li, S. Hojae, S. ZHANG, and Y. Dianhai, "Biological nutrient removal in a full scale anoxic/anaerobic/aerobic/pre-anoxic-MBR plant for low C/N ratio municipal wastewater treatment," Chinese Journal of Chemical Engineering, vol. 22, 2014, pp. 447-454.
[11] Z. Fu, F. Yang, Y. An, and Y. Xue, "Simultaneous nitrification and denitrification coupled with phosphorus removal in a modified anoxic/oxic-membrane bioreactor (A/O-MBR)," Biochemical Engineering Journal, vol. 43, 2009, pp. 191-196.
[12] D. Wang, X. Li, Q. Yang, W. Zheng, Y. Wu, T. Zeng, et al., "Improved biological phosphorus removal performance driven by the aerobic/extended-idle regime with propionate as the sole carbon source," water research, vol. 46, 2012, pp. 3868-3878.
[13] A. Oehmen, P. C. Lemos, G. Carvalho, Z. Yuan, J. Keller, L. L. Blackall, et al., "Advances in enhanced biological phosphorus removal: from micro to macro scale," Water research, vol. 41, 2007, pp. 2271-2300.
[14] U. Bracklow, A. Drews, R. Gnirss, S. Klamm, B. Lesjean, J. Stüber, et al., "Influence of sludge loadings and types of substrates on nutrients removal in MBRs," Desalination, vol. 250, 2010, pp. 734-739.
[15] R. Xu, Q. Zhang, J. Tong, Y. Wei, and Y. Fan, "Internal carbon source from sludge pretreated by microwave-H2O2 for nutrient removal in A2/O-membrane bioreactors," Environmental technology, vol. 36, 2015, pp. 827-836.
[16] P. Elefsiniotis and D. Li, "The effect of temperature and carbon source on denitrification using volatile fatty acids," Biochemical Engineering Journal, vol. 28, 2006, pp. 148-155.
[17] J. L. C. Ladu, X. W. Lu, and A. M. Osman, "Integrated Processes of Anoxic/Oxic Bioreactor and Artificial Wetland for Rural Domestic Wastewater Treatment," in Advanced Materials Research, 2014, pp. 2526-2529.
[18] H. Wu, J. Zhang, H. H. Ngo, W. Guo, Z. Hu, S. Liang, et al., "A review on the sustainability of constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment: design and operation," Bioresource technology, vol. 175, 2015, pp. 594-601.
[19] A. L. Eusebi, N. Martin‐Garcia, E. J. McAdam, B. Jefferson, J. N. Lester, and E. Cartmell, "Nitrogen removal from temperate anaerobic–aerobic two‐stage biological systems: impact of reactor type and wastewater strength," Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology, vol. 88, 2013, pp. 2107-2114.
[20] Y. J. Chan, M. F. Chong, C. L. Law, and D. Hassell, "A review on anaerobic–aerobic treatment of industrial and municipal wastewater," Chemical Engineering Journal, vol. 155, 2009, pp. 1-18.
[21] A. Katsogiannis, M. Kornaros, and G. Lyberatos, "Enhanced nitrogen removal in SBRs bypassing nitrate generation accomplished by multiple aerobic/anoxic phase pairs," Water science and technology, vol. 47, 2003, pp. 53-59.
[22] C. W. Knapp and D. W. Graham, "Nitrite-oxidizing bacteria guild ecology associated with nitrification failure in a continuous-flow reactor," FEMS microbiology ecology, vol. 62, 2007, pp. 195-201.
[23] R.-M. Wang, Y. Wang, G.-P. Ma, Y.-F. He, and Y.-Q. Zhao, "Efficiency of porous burnt-coke carrier on treatment of potato starch wastewater with an anaerobic–aerobic bioreactor," Chemical Engineering Journal, vol. 148, 2009, pp. 35-40.
[24] G.-P. Ma, Y.-F. He, B.-Y. Yang, F.-R. Li, and R.-M. Wang, "Effect of latex carrier on treating potato starch wastewater in Anaerobic-aerobic Integrative Bioreactor," Technology of Water Treatment, vol. 33, 2007, pp. 75-77.
[25] Y. Zhang, X. C. Wang, Z. Cheng, Y. Li, and J. Tang, "Effect of fermentation liquid from food waste as a carbon source for enhancing denitrification in wastewater treatment," Chemosphere, vol. 144, Feb 2016, pp. 689-96.