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Conflict of Interest: In relation to this article, we declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Publication history: Received April 29, 2004
Accepted February 2, 2005

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Nitrogen Compounds Removal in a Packed Bed External Loop Airlift Bioreactor

Siriwan Silapakul Sorawit Powtongsook¹ Prasert Pavasant^†

Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand ¹Marine Biotechnology Research Unit (at Chulalongkorn University), National Center of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Bangkok, Thailand

prasert.p@chula.ac.th

Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering, May 2005, 22(3), 393-398(6), 10.1007/BF02719417

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Abstract

A packed bed external loop airlift bioreactor (PBELAB) was proposed as an alternative treatment system for wastewater containing ammonia and nitrate compounds. The 60L PBELAB consisted of aeration and non-aeration zones, both of which were packed with plastic bioballs to enhance the surface area for the attachment of bacteria. The system was able to achieve complete removal of all nitrogen compounds with simultaneous nitrification and denitrification, i.e., ammonia was decomposed in the aeration zone and nitrate was biodegraded in the non-aeration zone. At normal operation, the nitrification rate obtained from the system was in the range of 0.14-0.87 gNH3-N/m2d and the denitrification rate was 0.04 gNO3-N/m2d. The factors found to have great influence on the system included dissolved oxygen concentration and biofilm thickness. In addition, PBELAB was proven to perform well under nitrate shock load condition.

Keywords

Nitrification Denitrification Ammonia Nitrate Wastewater

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