A large pilot-scale membrane bioreactor (MBR) with a conventional denitrification/nitrification scheme for municipal wastewater treatment has been run for one year under two different aeration strategies in the oxidation/nitrification compartment. During the first five months air supply was provided according to the dissolved-oxygen set-point and the system run as a conventional pre-denitrification MBR; then, an intermittent aeration strategy based on effluent ammonia nitrogen was adopted in the aerobic compartment in order to assess the impact on process performances in terms of N and P removal, energy consumption and sludge reduction. The experimental inferences show a significant improvement of the effluent quality as COD and total nitrogen, both due to a better utilization of the denitrification potential which is a function of the available electron donor (biodegradable COD) and electron acceptor (nitric nitrogen); particularly, nitrogen removal increased from 67% to 75%. At the same time, a more effective biological phosphorus removal was observed as a consequence of better selection of denitrifying phosphorus accumulating organisms (dPAO). The longer duration of anoxic phases also reflected in a lower excess sludge production (12% decrease) compared with the standard pre-denitrification operation and in a decrease of energy consumption for oxygen supply (about 50%).
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Research Article|
October 01 2011
Alternate anoxic/aerobic operation for nitrogen removal in a membrane bioreactor for municipal wastewater treatment
G. Guglielmi;
1Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Trento, 38100 Trento, Italy *Current Address E.T.C. Engineering srl, Via Praga, 7, 38121 Trento, Italy
E-mail: giuseppe.guglielmi@etc-eng.it
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G. Andreottola
G. Andreottola
1Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Trento, 38100 Trento, Italy *Current Address E.T.C. Engineering srl, Via Praga, 7, 38121 Trento, Italy
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Water Sci Technol (2011) 64 (8): 1730–1735.
Article history
Received:
September 07 2010
Accepted:
June 29 2011
Citation
G. Guglielmi, G. Andreottola; Alternate anoxic/aerobic operation for nitrogen removal in a membrane bioreactor for municipal wastewater treatment. Water Sci Technol 1 October 2011; 64 (8): 1730–1735. doi: https://doi.org/10.2166/wst.2011.755
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