Low energy ammonia reduction from ammonia-rich sludge thickening lagoon supernatant in Canada: Pilot-scale demonstration

城市废水通常含有过量的营养物（氮和磷），如果未经充分处理就排放，可能会导致接收水体的富营养化。消化的污泥液，即由城市污水处理厂产生的污泥（初级和二级）处理产生的产水含有高浓度的氨，其对水生生物群有毒，需要进一步处理。传统的硝化/反硝化过程是能源密集型的，因为它需要大量的曝气。较新的工艺，如亚硝化/亚硝化和亚硝化/厌氧氨氧化（厌氧氨氧化）工艺需要较低的需氧量正在出现，但有关这些工艺在全面实施的信息是有限的，特别是在加拿大寒冷条件下的操作。与EPCOR Water Services Inc.合作，Liu的团队探索了在加拿大寒冷条件下采用亚硝化/反硝化和亚硝化/厌氧氨氧化工艺的策略，以降低富氨污泥液中的氨含量，并取得了优异的氨还原效率。然而，在中试规模的两个过程的进一步研究是必要的，为未来的全面的过程选择和评估，以满足EPCOR的需求。因此，在此建议继续以前的实验室规模的研究。在这项研究中，我们建议采用亚硝化/反硝化和亚硝化/厌氧氨氧化工艺在中试规模，以评估富氨污泥液处理的操作和控制策略。这一目标将通过多学科研究来实现，这些研究结合了阿尔伯塔大学在废水处理、生物膜微生物学和生物反应器开发方面的专业知识，以及EPCOR的全尺寸生物反应器设计和操作。将运行和优化中试规模的亚硝化/反硝化和亚硝化/厌氧氨氧化反应器。从这项研究中获得的操作控制策略将被用来提供进一步的全面实施的指导。

Municipal wastewater generally contains excessive nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus), which when discharged without sufficient treatment can cause eutrophication in the receiving water bodies. Digested sludge liquor, the produce water generated from the treatment of sludge (primary and secondary) that is produced from municipal wastewater treatment plant contains high concentrations of ammonia that is toxic to aquatic biota and requires further treatment. The conventional nitrification/denitrification process is energy intensive due to its significant requirement for aeration. Newer processes, such as the nitritation/denitritation and nitritation/anammox (anaerobic ammonium oxidation) processes require low oxygen demand are emerging, but information on the implementation of these processes at the full-scale is limited, especially for operations under cold Canadian conditions. In collaboration with EPCOR Water Services Inc., Liu's group has explored the strategies to adopt the nitritation/denitritation and nitritation/anammox processes using lab-scale reactors to reduce the ammonia content in the ammonia-rich sludge liquor under the cold Canadian conditions, and achieved excellent ammonia reduction efficiency. However, further study of both processes at the pilot-scale is necessary for future full-scale process selection and evaluation to meet EPCOR's needs. As such, a continuation of the previous lab-scale study is proposed here. In this study, we propose to employ the nitritation/denitritation and nitritation/anammox processes at the pilot-scale to estimate the operation and control strategies for ammonia-rich sludge liquor treatment. This objective will be achieved through multidisciplinary studies combining expertise in wastewater treatment, biofilm microbiology, and bioreactor development from the University of Alberta, and full-scale bioreactor design and operation from EPCOR. Pilot-scale nitritation/denitritation and nitritation/anammox reactors will be operated and optimized. Operational control strategies obtained from this study will be used to provide guidance for further full-scale implementation.