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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.
Sec. Bioprocess Engineering
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2024.1463544

Optimizing Nitrogen Removal in advanced wastewater treatment Using Biological Aerated Filters

Provisionally accepted
Juan Li Juan Li 1,2Ziru Niu Ziru Niu 1,2*Lei Li Lei Li 3*Shuting Zhou Shuting Zhou 4*
  • 1 Shaanxi Provincial Land Engineering Construction Group, Key Laboratory of Degraded and Unused Land Consolidation Engineering, Ministry of Natural Resources, Xi’an, China
  • 2 Shaanxi Engineering Research Center of Land Consolidation, Shaanxi Provincial Land Consolidation Engineering Technology Research Center, Xi’an, China
  • 3 Kweichow Moutai Winery (Group) Health Wine Co., LTD, Renhuai, China
  • 4 School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Reducing total nitrogen (TN) presents a significant challenge for numerous wastewater treatment facilities. In order to address this issue, the current study employed a biological aerated filter for the treatment of wastewater containing low nitrogen concentrations. Both lab-scale and pilot-scale biofilters were constructed to investigate the denitrification performance and maximum denitrification load. The findings indicated that the anaerobic denitrification process of established biofilm adhered to pseudo-first-order kinetics. The results of batch testing and continuous-flow experiments confirmed that the minimum hydraulic retention time (HRT) required for mature biofilm was determined to be 0.5 hour. The optimal operating parameters were found to be as follows: influent NO 3 --N concentration of 25 mg/L, HRT of 0.5 hour, resulting in effluent TN levels below 1 mg/L. Under these conditions, the denitrifying load for the lab-scale I-BAF system was calculated to be 1.26 kg (TN)/( m 3 • d). Furthermore, it was observed that the maximum denitrifying load could reach 2.2 kg (TN)/( m 3 • d) when the influent NO 3 --N concentration was increased to 50 mg/L while maintaining an HRT of 0.5 hour. For the mature biofilter, the appropriate HRT ranged from 2 hours to 0.5 hour. Microbial diversity analysis revealed that the genus Enterobacter was dominant in all denitrification systems, followed by Comamonas and Rhodococcus. The operational parameters described in the paper could be recommended for a full-scale wastewater treatment facility.

    Keywords: Immobilized biological aerated filter, Total nitrogen removal, Denitrification load, microbial community, Advanced wastewater treatment

    Received: 12 Jul 2024; Accepted: 08 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Li, Niu, Li and Zhou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Ziru Niu, Shaanxi Provincial Land Engineering Construction Group, Key Laboratory of Degraded and Unused Land Consolidation Engineering, Ministry of Natural Resources, Xi’an, China
    Lei Li, Kweichow Moutai Winery (Group) Health Wine Co., LTD, Renhuai, China
    Shuting Zhou, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.