Development of an innovative multi-zone treatment system for nitrogen-rich wastewaters using anammox process

拟议的项目旨在通过一种节能和经济的方法从工农业废水中去除氮，氮是地表水和地下水的一种重要污染物，与现有技术相比，这种方法使用的氧气少50%，产生的污泥和温室气体也少得多。建议的处理系统使用一种名为BioCAST的多区域技术，以及一系列特殊的好氧-厌氧工艺，称为部分硝化-厌氧氨氧化，在不需要有机碳的情况下去除氮。氨在好氧条件下的部分硝化(PN)产生亚硝酸盐，亚硝酸盐在随后的厌氧氨氧化工艺中用于去除厌氧条件下的剩余氨氮。尽管部分硝化-厌氧氨氧化工艺具有可持续性和经济上的优势，但由于这些工艺中涉及的细菌生长率非常低，对传统技术的应用构成了挑战，因此它们的发展已经放缓。因此，近年来，大量的努力集中在通过在生物膜反应器中使用固定化微生物或增加悬浮或颗粒菌的滞留来提供部分硝化-厌氧氨氧化过程的稳定和长期运行的处理系统。BioCAST技术得益于一种特殊的设计和操作策略，该策略保留了高浓度的悬浮和固定化微生物，并能够在部分氧化和缺氧条件下进行处理。该项目的主要目标是开发一种通过PN-Anammox工艺脱氮的最佳操作条件的技术。将展示用于处理厌氧消化过程的流出物的开发系统的性能。为实现该项目的目标，研究工作将侧重于康科迪亚大学环境工程实验室的实验室规模处理系统的技术开发和性能评估。康科迪亚研究团队和该公司有能力领导这一项目，并为工业应用开发技术。

The proposed project addresses the removal of nitrogen, an important pollutant of surface waters and groundwater, from industrial and agricultural wastewaters by an energy-efficient and economical method that uses 50% less oxygen and produces considerably less sludge and greenhouse gases compared to the existing technologies. The proposed treatment system uses a multi-zone technology, called BioCAST, along with a special series of aerobic-anaerobic processes known as partial nitrification-anammox to remove nitrogen without the need for organic carbon. The partial nitrification (PN) of ammonia under aerobic condition produces nitrite that is used in the subsequent anammox process to remove the remaining ammonia under anaerobic condition. Despite the sustainability and economical advantages of partial nitrification-anammox processes, their development has been slowed down because of the very low growth rate of bacteria involved in these processes that poses a challenge to the application of conventional technologies. Accordingly, a great amount of effort has been focused in recent years on the development of treatment systems that offer stable and prolonged operation of partial nitrification-anammox processes by using immobilized microorganisms in biofilm reactors, or increasing the retention of suspended or granulated bacteria. BioCAST technology benefits from a special design and operation strategy that retains a high concentration of both suspended and immobilized microorganisms, and enables treatment under partial oxidation and anoxic conditions. The main objective of this project is to develop a technology for the optimum operating conditions for nitrogen removal by the PN-anammox processes. The performance of the developed system for the treatment of effluents of anaerobic digestion processes will be demonstrated. The research work to meet the objectives of this project will focus on technology development and performance evaluation of a laboratory-scale treatment system at the Environmental Engineering laboratories of Concordia University. The Concordia research team and the Company have the capacity to lead this project and to develop the technology for industrial applications.