Method and apparatus for nitrogen removal in wastewater treatment

1. A wastewater treatment apparatus, comprising:

a biological nitrogen removal (BNR) reactor having a volume that is transiently aerated;

an ammonia sensor for generating an ammonia concentration signal; and

a controller for processing the ammonia concentration signal and for thereby causing out-selection of nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB) under controlled transient anoxia conditions, the conditions being controlled either along the flow-path or along the process time-line, and

wherein the apparatus is configured to cause a dissolved oxygen (DO) profile to switch between a lower DO setpoint of less than 0.1 mg/L and an upper DO setpoint of greater than 1.0 mg/L, and

wherein an aeration system activation interval, the upper DO setpoint, or both are set such that an on-line measured ammonia concentration is higher than 1.5 mg/L ammonia as nitrogen, for more than 75% of the transiently-aerated reactor volume in space or time.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising an oxidized nitrogen sensor for sensing oxidized nitrogen in the reactor, and for generating concentration signals that can be nitrite, nitrate or combination of nitrite and nitrate and wherein the controller processes the ammonia and oxidized nitrogen concentration signals, and controls DO concentration, duration of an aerobic period, and/or duration of an anoxic period, in the reactor, based on the ammonia concentration and an oxidized nitrogen concentration.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the controller generates instructions for increasing, decreasing or maintaining the DO concentration, the duration of the aerobic period, and/or the duration of the anoxic period, to maintain (A) a ratio of the ammonia concentration to the oxidized nitrogen concentration, on an as nitrogen basis, from about 0.5 to 1.5 or (B) a sum of the ammonia concentration plus the negative value of the oxidized nitrogen concentration, on an as nitrogen basis, from −3.0 to +1.0.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the reactor has a limited aerobic sludge retention time for reaching an ammonia setpoint by controlled extension of anoxic periods or volume and by controlling the sludge wasting rate, to maintain DO greater than 1 mg/L in the case of DO intensity control, or to increase aerobic duration by decreasing anoxic duration in the case of aerobic/anoxic duration control.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the BNR reactor receives bioaugmentation of ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) from a high-ammonia-strength reactor, having a reactor feed concentration greater than 200 mg/L ammonia as nitrogen, and wherein a less dense, more compressible, or unattached sludge fraction is selected from the high-ammonia-strength reactor for the bioaugmentation, and fed to the BNR reactor such that retention time of the bioaugmentation fraction is less than 10 days in the high-ammonia-strength reactor.

6. The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the controller generates instructions for increasing, decreasing or maintaining the DO concentration, the duration of the aerobic period, and/or the duration of the anoxic period in the reactor based on a ratio or sum of the ammonia concentration and oxidized nitrogen concentration.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising a high-ammonia-strength reactor for bioaugmentation of anammox organisms to provide microbial competitors for nitrite for out-selection of NOB.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the apparatus is configured to maintain an oxygen uptake rate allowing for rapid transition to anoxia of less than 10 minutes from an aerated state, and wherein the apparatus includes aeration devices for causing rapid transition from anoxia to an aerated condition.

9. A wastewater treatment apparatus comprising:

a reactor having a volume that is transiently aerated;

a first sensor for sensing ammonia concentration in the reactor, and for generating an ammonia signal representative of ammonia concentration;

a second sensor for sensing oxidized nitrogen concentration in the reactor, and for generating an oxidized nitrogen signal representative of nitrite, nitrate, or combination of nitrite and nitrate concentration; and

a controller for processing the oxidized nitrogen and an ammonia concentration signals, and for controlling dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration, duration of an aerobic period, and/or duration of an anoxic period, in the reactor, based on a ratio or sum of ammonia concentration and oxidized nitrogen concentration, and

wherein an aeration system activation interval is set such that an on-line measured ammonia concentration is higher than 1.5 mg/L ammonia as nitrogen, for more than 75% of the transiently-aerated reactor volume in space or time, and

wherein a controlled effluent containing ammonia and nitrite is fed into an anoxic reactor where anammox bacteria are selectively grown and retained.

10. The apparatus described in claim 9 , further comprising

a supply of an organic or inorganic substrate or combination of substrates;

an effluent stream containing a blend of ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate; and

a second reactor, wherein the supply of the organic or inorganic substrate or combination of substrates is added to the effluent stream that is supplied to second reactor such that further nitrogen removal can be accomplished using anammox accomplishing selective reduction of nitrate to nitrite by anammox or other microorganisms and subsequent nitrite and ammonia removal by anammox.

11. A wastewater treatment method, comprising:

providing a biological nitrogen removal (BNR) reactor that is transiently aerated;

using an ammonia sensor to generate an ammonia concentration signal;

using a controller to process the ammonia concentration signal and thereby cause out-selection of nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB) under controlled transient anoxia conditions, the conditions being controlled either along the flow-path or along the process time-line,

causing a dissolved oxygen (DO) profile to switch between a lower DO setpoint of less than 0.1 mg/L and an upper DO setpoint of greater than 1.0 mg/L; and

setting an aeration system activation interval, the upper DO setpoint, or both such that an on-line measured ammonia concentration is higher than 1.5 mg/L ammonia as nitrogen, for more than 75% of the transiently-aerated reactor volume in space or time.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising decreasing an NOB net observed growth rate by exposure to an inhibitor, a nitrogenous metabolic intermediate, or a toxic substance.

13. The method of claim 11 , further comprising using a growth factor to increase ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and anammox net growth rates.

14. The method of claim 11 , further comprising using an oxidized nitrogen sensor to sense oxidized nitrogen concentration in the reactor, and to generate an oxidized nitrogen signal, that can be nitrite, nitrate or combination of nitrite and nitrate, and wherein the controller processes the ammonia and oxidized nitrogen concentration signals, and controls DO concentration, duration of an aerobic period, and/or duration of an anoxic period, in the reactor, based on ammonia concentration and oxidized nitrogen concentration.

15. The method of claim 11 , further comprising causing the controller to generate instructions for increasing, decreasing or maintaining the DO concentration, the duration of the aerobic period, and/or the duration of the anoxic period, to maintain (A) a ratio of the ammonia concentration to the oxidized nitrogen concentration, on an as nitrogen basis, from about 0.5 to 1.5 or (B) a sum of the ammonia concentration plus the negative value of the oxidized nitrogen concentration, on an as nitrogen basis, from −3.0 to +1.0.

16. The method of claim 11 , further comprising limiting an aerobic sludge retention time for the reactor to reach an ammonia setpoint by controlled extension of anoxic periods or volume and by controlling the sludge wasting rate, to maintain DO greater than 1 mg/L in the case of DO intensity control, or to increase aerobic duration by decreasing anoxic duration in the case of aerobic/anoxic duration control.

17. The method of claim 11 , further comprising the step of feeding ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) to the BNR reactor from a high-ammonia-strength reactor, having a reactor feed concentration greater than 200 mg/L ammonia as nitrogen, and wherein a less dense, more compressible, or unattached sludge fraction is selected from the high-ammonia-strength reactor, and is fed to the BNR reactor such that retention time of the fraction is less than 10 days in the high-ammonia-strength reactor.

18. The method of claim 11 , further comprising the step of providing a high-ammonia-strength reactor for bioaugmentation of anammox organisms, and using the high-ammonia-strength reactor to provide microbial competitors for nitrite for out-selection of NOB.

19. The method of claim 11 , further comprising the step of causing the controller to generate instructions for increasing, decreasing or maintaining the DO concentration, the duration of the aerobic period, and/or the duration of the anoxic period, in the reactor, based on a ratio or sum of ammonia concentration and oxidized nitrogen concentration, wherein a controlled effluent containing ammonia and nitrite is fed into an anoxic reactor where anammox bacteria are selectively grown and retained.

20. The method described in claim 19 , wherein an effluent stream contains a blend of ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate, such that further nitrogen removal can be accomplished using anammox in which an organic or inorganic substrate or combination of substrates are added to accomplish selective reduction of nitrate to nitrite by anammox or other microorganisms and subsequent nitrite and ammonia removal by anammox.