There is a growing interest to develop energy recovering and sustainable nutrient removal processes that minimize energy expenses associated with the conventional nitrification-denitrification process and the anammox process is considered as one of the most promising cost saving alternatives to conventional biological nitrogen removal. This study investigated the concept, application, and effect of partial nitritation and denitrification performance on nitritation-anammox microbial desalination cell (MDC) performance for energy-positive wastewater treatment and desalination. Two configurations of anammox MDCs (anaerobic-anammox cathode MDC (AnAmoxMDC) and nitration-anammox cathode MDC (NiAmoxMDC) were compared with an air cathode MDC (CMDC), operated in fed-batch mode. Results from this study showed that the maximum power density produced by NiAmoxMDC (1,007 mW/m3) was higher than that of AnAmoxMDC (444 mW/m3) and CMDC (952 mW/m3). More than 95% of ammonium-nitrogen (NH4+-N) removal was achieved in NiAmoxMDC, significantly higher than AnAmoxMDC (84%) and CMDC (77%). The NiAmoxMDC performed better than CMDC and AnAmoxMDC in terms of polarization, COD removal and salt removal in desalination chamber. In addition, cyclic voltammetry of anammox cathode showed redox peak centered at -140 V Vs Ag/AgCl which confirmed the catalytic activity of anammox bacteria towards electron transfer. Further, net energy balance of NiAmoxMDC was the highest (NiAmoxMDC-0.022 kWh/m3 &gt; CMDC-0.019 kWh/m3 &gt; AnAmoxMDC-0.021 kWh/m3) among the three configurations. This study demonstrated that a bioelectrochemical nitritation-anammox process can be used to accomplish a new synergy in MDCs configuration to simultaneously generate bioelectricity while treating ammonium-rich wastewater in the cathode chamber.

NEW (nutrient-energy-water) synergy in an anammox bioelectrochemical system for resource-efficient wastewater treatment

2019 Fall National Meeting

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