Sinks and sources of anammox bacteria in a wastewater treatment plant - screening with qPCR.

The deammonification process, which includes nitritation and anammox bacteria, is an energy-efficient nitrogen removal process. Starting up an anammox process in a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) is still widely believed to require external seeding of anammox bacteria. To demonstrate the principle of a non-seeded anammox start-up, anammox bacteria in potential sources must be quantified.

Rapid start-up of one-stage deammonification MBBR without addition of external inoculum.

In recent years, the anammox process has emerged as a useful method for robust and efficient nitrogen removal in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). This paper evaluates a one-stage deammonification (nitritation and anammox) start-up using carrier material without using anammox inoculum. A continuous laboratory-scale process was followed by full-scale operation with reject water from the digesters at Bekkelaget WWTP in Oslo, Norway.

Impact of seeding on the start-up of one-stage deammonification MBBRs.

Treating nitrogen-rich reject water from anaerobically digested sludge with deammonification has become a very beneficial side stream process. One common technique is the one-stage moving bed bioreactors (MBBRs), which in comparison with the other deammonification techniques can be started up without seeding anammox bacteria. This study investigated the impact of biofilm seeding on the start-up of one-stage deammonification MBBRs.