Biological nitrate removal from groundwater by an aerobic granular technology to supply drinking water at pilot-scale

Author(s):  
Miguel Hurtado-Martinez ◽  
Bárbara Muñoz-Palazon ◽  
Virginia María Robles-Arenas ◽  
Alejandro Gonzalez-Martinez ◽  
Jesús Gonzalez-Lopez
1998 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 237-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Mohseni-Bandpi ◽  
D. J. Elliott

A pilot scale rotating biological contactor (RBC) was used to investigate the removal of nitrate-nitrogen from groundwater using three different carbon sources, i.e., methanol, ethanol and acetic acid. Optimum carbon sources to influent nitrate-nitrogen ratio were established by varying the influent concentration of carbon sources. The optimum ratio of methanol, ethanol and acetic acid to nitrate-nitrogen ratios were found to be 2.9, 2.35 and 4.3 respectively. The nitrate-nitrogen removal efficiency averaged 93, 91 and 98 for methanol, ethanol and acetic acid respectively at a loading rate of 76 mg/m2.h. The results of this study show that the acetic acid is the most efficient carbon source for removal of nitrate-nitrogen. Effluent nitrite-nitrogen concentration was minimum for acetic acid as compared with ethanol and methanol. The effluent contained minimum suspended solids and turbidity for methanol as a carbon source. The results of this study indicate that biological nitrate removal using a RBC is a reliable and stable system under all the three carbon sources. The denitrified water in all cases requires some post treatment to oxidise the residual carbon source and remove biomass before distribution.


2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-275
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Petrovic ◽  
Marjana Simonic

The membrane bioreactor (MBR) system was investigated regarding its nitrate removal capacity from drinking water. The performance of a pilot-scale MBR was tested, depending on the operational parameters, using sucrose as a carbon source. Drinking water from the source was introduced into the reactor in order to study the influence of flow-rate on the nitrate removal and denitrification efficiency of drinking water. The content of the nitrate was around 70 mg/L and the C/N ratio was 3:1. Nitrate removal efficiencies above 90% were obtained by flow-rates lower than 4.8 L/h. The specific denitrification rates varied between 0.02 and 0.16 g/L NO3/ (g/L MLSS?d). The efficiencies and nitrate removal were noticeably affected by the flow-rate and hydraulic retention times. At the maximum flow-rate of 10.2 L/h still 68% of the nitrate had been removed, whilst the highest specific denitrification rate was achieved at 0.2738 g/L NO3/ (g/L) MLSS?d). The maximum reactor removal capacity was calculated at 8.75 g NO3/m3?h.


2010 ◽  
Vol 76 (22) ◽  
pp. 7473-7481 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xu Li ◽  
Giridhar Upadhyaya ◽  
Wangki Yuen ◽  
Jess Brown ◽  
Eberhard Morgenroth ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Phosphorus was added as a nutrient to bench-scale and pilot-scale biologically active carbon (BAC) reactors operated for perchlorate and nitrate removal from contaminated groundwater. The two bioreactors responded similarly to phosphorus addition in terms of microbial community function (i.e., reactor performance), while drastically different responses in microbial community structure were detected. Improvement in reactor performance with respect to perchlorate and nitrate removal started within a few days after phosphorus addition for both reactors. Microbial community structures were evaluated using molecular techniques targeting 16S rRNA genes. Clone library results showed that the relative abundance of perchlorate-reducing bacteria (PRB) Dechloromonas and Azospira in the bench-scale reactor increased from 15.2% and 0.6% to 54.2% and 11.7% after phosphorus addition, respectively. Real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) experiments revealed that these increases started within a few days after phosphorus addition. In contrast, after phosphorus addition, the relative abundance of Dechloromonas in the pilot-scale reactor decreased from 7.1 to 0.6%, while Zoogloea increased from 17.9 to 52.0%. The results of this study demonstrated that similar operating conditions for bench-scale and pilot-scale reactors resulted in similar contaminant removal performances, despite dramatically different responses from microbial communities. These findings suggest that it is important to evaluate the microbial community compositions inside bioreactors used for drinking water treatment, as they determine the microbial composition in the effluent and impact downstream treatment requirements for drinking water production. This information could be particularly relevant to drinking water safety, if pathogens or disinfectant-resistant bacteria are detected in the bioreactors.


2003 ◽  
Vol 3 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 15-22
Author(s):  
P. Kouadio ◽  
M. Tétrault

Three colored surface water nanofiltration pilot-scale projects were conducted in the province of Quebec (eastern Canada), between November 2000 and March 2002, by the company H2O Innovation (2000) inc., for the municipalities of Lac Bouchette, Latulipe-et-Gaboury and Charlesbourg (now part of Quebec City). Results indicated that nanofiltration permeate quality has an advance on present drinking water regulation standard in Quebec, but important membrane fouling occurred. Fouling can be controlled by pretreatment and optimization of the operating conditions.


2006 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-130
Author(s):  
C.-H. Hung ◽  
K.-H. Tsai ◽  
Y.-K. Su ◽  
C.-M. Liang ◽  
M.-H. Su ◽  
...  

Due to the extensive application of artificial nitrogen-based fertilizers on land, groundwater from the central part of Taiwan faces problems of increasing concentrations of nitrate, which were measured to be well above 30 mg/L all year round. For meeting the 10 mg/L nitrate standard, optimal operations for a heterotrophic denitrification pilot plant designed for drinking water treatment was investigated. Ethanol and phosphate were added for bacteria growing on anthracite to convert nitrate to nitrogen gas. Results showed that presence of high dissolved oxygen (around 4 mg/L) in the source water did not have a significantly negative effect on nitrogen removal. When operated under a C/N ratio of 1.88, which was recommended in the literature, nitrate removal efficiency was measured to be around 70%, sometimes up to 90%. However, the reactor often underwent severe clogging problems. When operated under C/N ratio of 1.0, denitrification efficiency decreased significantly to 30%. Finally, when operated under C/N ratio of 1.5, the nitrate content of the influent was almost completely reduced at the first one-third part of the bioreactor with an overall removal efficiency of 89–91%. Another advantage for operating with a C/N ratio of 1.5 is that only one-third of the biosolids was produced compared to a C/N value of 1.88.


2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 1405-1413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Muñoz ◽  
Erik de Vries ◽  
Janneke Wittebol ◽  
Jens Aamand

A prospective environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) and financial cost assessment is performed to the application of bioaugmentation to sand filters in Danish waterworks, to remove 2,6-dichlorobenzamide (BAM) from drinking water resources. Based on pilot-scale and laboratory-scale data, we compare bioaugmentation to current alternative strategies, namely granular activated carbon (GAC) adsorption, and well re-location. Both assessments identified well re-location as the least preferred option, however, this result is very sensitive to the distance from the waterworks to the new well. When bioaugmentation is compared to GAC, the former has a lower impact in 13 impact categories, but if immobilized bacteria are used, the impacts are higher than for GAC in all impact categories. On the other hand, from a cost perspective bioaugmentation appears to be preferable to GAC only if immobilized bacteria are used.


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