With anaerobic
ammonium oxidation (anammox), efficient nitrogen removal from wastewater with
low energy usage and small carbon footprint can be achieved. Anammox bacteria
remove nitrogen without consuming organic carbon, in contrast to denitrifying
bacteria used in conventional treatment. Hence, more biogas can be produced
from the organic carbon using anammox at wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs).
Together with decreased needs for aeration this reduces the total energy usage
and the carbon footprint considerably. Also decreased greenhouse emissions and
lower economic costs are expected. Today, anammox is used for treatment of
concentrated warm side streams, but not the main stream of wastewater, which
represents 80-85% of all nitrogen at WWTPs. The challenge is to achieve high
process rates and suppress unwanted microbial activities in the colder and more
dilute main stream. In this project, the effects of environmental factors
typical for main stream wastewater are investigated with respect to the process
performance and the activity, diversity and composition of the microbial
communities in order to develop operational strategies.
VA-Syd
(David Gustavsson); KMB, Mikrobiologi, Göteborgs Universitet (Malte Hermansson,
Carolina Suarez) / VA-Syd (David Gustavsson); CMB, Microbiology, University of
Gothenburg (Malte Hermansson, Carolina Suarez)
Bioresource Labs
(BRL); Use of anammox for a more efficient nitrogen removal in wastewater
treatment plants
Water Environment Technology