Increased hydrazine during partial nitritation process in upflow air-lift reactor fed with supernatant of anaerobic digester effluent

The optimal balance of ammonium and nitrite is essential for successful operation of the subsequent anammox process. We conducted a partial nitritation experiment using an upflow air-lift reactor to provide operational parameters for achieving the optimal ratio of ammonium to nitrite, by feeding supernatant of anaerobic digester effluent, highnitrogen containing rejection water. Semi-continuous operation results show that HRT should be set between 15 and 17 hours to achieve the optimum ration of 1.3 of NO2-N/NH4-N. In the UAR, nitritation was the dominant reaction due to high concentration of ammonia and low biodegradable organics. The influent contained low concentrations of hydroxylamine and hydrazine. However, hydrazine increased during partial nitritation by similar to 60-130% although there was no potential anammox activity in the reactor. The partial nitritation process successfully provided the ratio of nitrogen species for the anammox reaction, and relived the nitrite restraint on the anammox activity by increasing hydrazine concentration.