Study on the performance of anaerobic ammonium oxidation treatment using PVA gel as a carrier

A continuous experiment was carried out to study the performance of anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox), a novel and low cost nitrogen removal treatment process with an energy-saving characteristic. A complete mixing reactor was used with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) gel as the carrier. In particular, performances of nitrogen removal and attachment characteristics of anammox bacteria on the PVA carrier surface were investigated. The results indicted that high concentration of anammox bacteria, up to 27,000 mg/L-carrier, had attached on the PVA carrier surface. A high nitrogen removal rate of up to 5.5 kg/m³-reactor/d was obtained during this continuous experiment. Furthermore, it was also confirmed that there was no generation of N₂O gas in the anammox reaction