High-rate partial nitrification treatment of reject water as a pretreatment for anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox).

In this study, a lab-scale swim-bed partial nitrification reactor was developed to treat ammonium-rich reject water to achieve an appropriate NO(2)(-)-N/NH(4)(+)-N mixture that could serve as a pretreatment for anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox). Strictly controlling the DO concentration was adopted as the main operational strategy. In addition, the influent concentrations of inorganic carbon/ammonium (IC/NH(4)(+)) and alkalinity/ammonium (Alk/NH(4)(+)) that were approximately 0.8 and 4.8, respectively, were regarded as the suitable ratios for the steady and high-rate operation of the reactor in this study. When reject water that was not diluted was introduced to this system, the maximum nitrogen loading rate was 5.9 kg-N/m(3)/day, the ammonium conversion rate was 3.1 kg-N/m(3)/day, and the effluent NO(2)-N/(NO(2)-N+NO(3)-N) percentage ratio was over 99.9%. Furthermore, DNA analysis confirmed the existence of AOB, which was responsible for the stable performance that was achieved in the PN reactor.