Biological Nitrogen Removal Database

A manually curated data resource for microbial nitrogen removal


Water Treatment Plant


Experimental setup


Influent:Synthetic wastewater

Denitrification system:Heterotrophic denitrification

Denitrifying reactor:Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR)

Medium:Suspended culture

Culture taken from:Activated sludge

Organism (s) cultured:nan

Respiration:Anaerobic–aerobic

Electron donor:Milk bottling

Electron acceptor:Nitrate


Experimental Information


Input NO3-N (mg/l):nan

Nitrate removal rate (mg NO3-N/l/h):nan

Denitrification rate (gNO3-N removed/m3/day):3.8

Microorganisms identified:nan

Molecular tools:nan


Information about Article


Major findings:A number of agro-food wastewater were used as carbon sources in the denitrification process because of their high biodegradability and high COD concentration. The study suggests that tomato processing wastewater can be used as an alternative carbon sources for optimizing denitrification process as this economically and environmentally viable.

Authors:Rodriguez et al., 2007

Title:Use of Agro-Food Wastewaters for the Optimisation of the Denitrification Process

Pubmed link:Link

Full research link:Link

Abstract:The aim of this work was to study the feasibility of the denitrification process enhancement, in the Ciudad Real (Spain) WWTP, by dosing agro-food wastewaters generated nearby the city. The studied agro-food wastewaters were characterised by a high COD and low nutrients concentration. The denitrification rates with these wastewaters were lower than those obtained either with acetate or urban sewage, however the dose of agro-food wastewaters raised significantly the denitrification capacity in the WWTP because of the significant increase of easily biodegradable substrates in the wastewater. From the laboratory NUR batch test it was observed that the best agro-food wastewater to enhance the denitrification process was that coming from tomato processing, which presented an average denitrification rate of 1.9 mg NOx-N/(g VSS.h) and an average denitrification yield of 0.2 mg NOx-N/mg COD. The viability of the use of tomato processing wastewater was checked in a pilot plant optimised for urban sewage treatment with biological nutrient removal. The optimum dose, 5.9 mg COD/mg NOx-N, was applied and 99% of the nitrate was removed from the wastewater without influencing negatively either the COD or P effluent concentrations.