Bioaugmented sulfur-oxidizing denitrification system with Alcaligenes defragrans B21 for high nitrate containing wastewater treatment

The performance of enriched sludge augmented with the B21 strain of Alcaligenes defragrans was compared with that of enriched sludge, as well as with pure Alcaligenes defragrans B21, in the context of a sulfur-oxidizing denitrification (SOD) process. In synthetic wastewater treatment containing 100–1,000 mg NO3−-N/L, the single strain-seeded system exhibited superior performance, featuring higher efficiency and a shorter startup period, provided nitrate loading rate was less than 0.2 kg NO3−-N/m3 per day. At nitrate loading rate of more than 0.5 kg NO3−-N/m3 per day, the bioaugmented sludge system showed higher resistance to shock loading than two other systems. However, no advantage of the bioaugmented system over the enriched sludge system without B21 strain was observed in overall efficiency of denitrification. Both the bioaugmented sludge and enriched sludge systems obtained stable denitrification performance of more than 80% at nitrate loading rate of up to 2 kg NO3−-N/m3 per day.