The main anammox-based processes, the involved microbes and the novel process concept from the application perspective

Highlights

• The PNA, denitratation/anammox, and DAMO/anammox process are reviewed together.

• Denitratation/anammox-based process is promising in mainstream treatment.

• DAMO and denitratation processes realize the higher nitrogen removal efficiency.

• The utilization of metabolism diversity of functional microbe is worth exploring.

• An effective waste treatment system concept is proposed.

Abstract

Anammox technology has been widely researched over the past 40-year from the laboratory-scale to full-scale. It is well-known that in actual applications, the solo application of anammox is not feasible. Since both ammonium and nitrite are prerequisites based on the reaction mechanism, the pre-treatment of wastewater is necessary. With the combination of anammox process and other pre-treatment processes to treat the actual wastewater, many types of anammox-based processes have been developed with distinct nitrogen removal performance. Thus, in order to heighten the awareness of researchers to the developments and accelerate the application of these processes to the treatment of actual wastewater, the main anammox-based processes are reviewed in this paper. It includes the partial nitritation/anammox process, the denitratation/anammox (PD/A) process, the denitrifying anaerobic methane oxidation/anammox (DAMO/A) process, and more complex deuterogenic processes. These processes have made the breakthroughs in the application of the anammox technology, such as the combination of nitrification and PD/A process can achieve stability and reliability of nitrogen removal in the treatment of mainstream wastewater, the PD/A process and the DAMO/A have brought about further improvements in the total nitrogen removal efficiency of wastewater. The diversity of functional microbe characteristics under the specific condition indicate the wide application potential of anammox-based processes, and further exploration is necessary. A whole waste treatment system concept is proposed through the effective allocation of above mentioned processes, with the maximum recovery of energy and resources, and minimal environmental impact.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Anammox / Nitritation / Denitratation / Denitrifying anaerobic methane oxidation / Mainstream wastewater

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) (No. 19H01160) and the China Scholarship Council (No. 201606460046).

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