Wenlin Jia

Impact of COD/N ratio on nitrous oxide emission from microcosm wetlands and their performance in removing nitrogen from wastewater

Constructed wetlands (CWs) are considered to be important sources of nitrous oxide (N(2)O). In order to investigate the effect of influent COD/N ratio on N(2)O emission and control excess emission from nitrogen removal, free water surface microcosm wetlands were used and fed with different influent. In addition, the transformation of nitrogen was examined for better understanding of the mechanism of N(2)O production under different operating COD/N ratios. It was found that N(2)O emission and the performance of microcosm wetlands were significantly affected by COD/N ratio of wastewater influent. Strong relationships exist between N(2)O production rate and nitrite (r=0.421, p<0.01). During denitrification process, DO concentration crucially influences N(2)O production rate. An optimal influent COD/N ratio was obtained by adjusting external carbon sources for most effective N(2)O emission control and best performance of the CWs in nitrogen removal from wastewater. It is concluded that under the operating condition of COD/N ratio=5, total N(2)O emission is minimum and the microcosm wetland is most effective in wastewater nitrogen removal.

Nitrous oxide emission in low-oxygen simultaneous nitrification and denitrification process: Sources and mechanisms

This study attempts to elucidate the emission sources and mechanisms of nitrous oxide (N2O) during simultaneous nitrification and denitrification (SND) process under oxygen-limiting condition. The results indicated that N2O emitted during low-oxygen SND process was 0.8±0.1 mgN/gMLSS, accounting for 7.7% of the nitrogen input. This was much higher than the reported results from conventional nitrification and denitrification processes. Batch experiments revealed that nitrifier denitrification was attributed as the dominant source of N2O production. This could be well explained by the change of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) community caused by the low-oxygen condition. It was observed that during the low-oxygen SND process, AOB species capable of denitrification, i.e., Nitrosomonas europaea and Nitrosomonas-like, were enriched whilst the composition of denitrifiers was only slightly affected. N2O emission by heterotrophic denitrification was considered to be limited by the presence of oxygen and unavailability of carbon source.

Effect of PHB and oxygen uptake rate on nitrous oxide emission during simultaneous nitrification denitrification process

Simultaneous nitrification denitrification (SND) process was achieved in a SBR system to evaluate the impacts of intracellular carbon source PHB and oxygen uptake rate (OUR) on nitrous oxide (N(2)O) emission. Compared with the sequential nitrification and denitrification (SQND) process, SND process significantly improved the nitrogen removal. N(2)O emission during SND process was much higher than the SQND process. The amount of N(2)O emission was 26.85 mg N per cycle in SND process, which was almost four times higher than that in SQND process. About 7.05% of the removed nitrogen during SND process was converted to N(2)O-N. N(2)O emission had great relations with the OUR and the OUR could reflect the N(2)O emission trend more exactly than the DO concentration. At the aerobic stage of SND, the simultaneous denitrification could carried out using PHB as the carbon source and N(2)O emission increased because of the slow degradation of PHB.

Effect of phosphorus load on nutrients removal and N2O emission during low-oxygen simultaneous nitrification and denitrification process

Three laboratory scale anaerobic-aerobic (low-oxygen) SBRs (R1, R2 and R3) were conducted at different influent phosphorus concentration to evaluate the impacts of phosphorus load on nutrients removal and nitrous oxide (N₂O) emission during low-oxygen simultaneous nitrification and denitrification (SND) process. The results showed that TP and TN removals were enhanced simultaneously with the increase in phosphorus load. It was mainly caused by the enrichment of polyphosphate accumulating organisms (PAOs) under high phosphorus load and low COD/P ratio (<50), which could use nitrate/nitrite as electron acceptors to take up the phosphorus. N₂O emission was reduced with increasing phosphorus load. N₂O-N emission amount per cycle of R3 was 24.1% lower than that of R1. It was due to the decrease of N₂O yield by heterotrophic denitrification. When the phosphorus load increased from R1 to R3, heterotrophic denitrification (D) ranged from 42.6% to 36.6% of the N₂O yield.

Microbial community characteristics during simultaneous nitrification-denitrification process: effect of COD/TP ratio

To evaluate the impact of chemical oxygen demand (COD)/total phosphorus (TP) ratio on microbial community characteristics during low-oxygen simultaneous nitrification and denitrification process, three anaerobic-aeration (low-oxygen) sequencing batch reactors, namely R1, R2, and R3, were performed under three different COD/TP ratios of 91.6, 40.8, and 27.6. The community structures of each reactor were analyzed via molecular biological technique. The results showed that the composition of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) was affected, indicated by Shannon indexes of the samples from R1, R2, and R3. Nitrosomonas was identified to be the dominant AOB in all SBRs. Moreover, the copy numbers of nitrifiers were more than those of denitrifiers, and the phosphorus-accumulating organisms to glycogen-accumulating organisms ratio increased with the decrease of COD/TP ratio.

Impacts of feeding strategy on microbial community structure diversity in vertical flow constructed wetlands

The impacts of feeding strategy (intermittently or continuously) on contaminant removal performance and microbial community structure in vertical flow constructed wetlands (VFCWs) were evaluated. The results showed that intermittent feeding strategy improved the removal of COD, TP and ammonium in VFCWs, although TN removal was weakened correspondingly The bacterial diversity decreased with the increase of substratum depth in all CWs. The intermittent feeding favored the growth of microorganisms due to the enhancement of oxygen content in the substratum. The feeding strategy had little impact on the microbial community in the surface substratum. However, in the bottom substratum, the impacts were of great significance. The microbial community structure similarity between the CWs with different feeding strategies was low.

Response of greenhouse gas emissions and microbial community dynamics to temperature variation during partial nitrification

This study investigated the greenhouse gas emission characteristics and microbial community dynamics with the variation of temperature during partial nitrification. Low temperature weakened nitrite accumulation, and partial nitrification would shift to complete nitrification easily at 15 °C. Based on CO2 equivalents (CO2-eq), partial nitrification process released 2.7 g of greenhouse gases per gMLSS per cycle, and N2O accounted for more than 98% of the total CO2-eq emission. The total CO2-eq emission amount at 35 °C was 45.6% and 153.4% higher than that at 25 °C and 15 °C, respectively. During partial nitrification, the microbial community diversity greatly declined compared with seed sludge. However, the diversity was enhanced at low temperature. The abundance of Betaproteobacteria at class level increased greatly during partial nitrification. Proteobacteria abundance declined while Nitrospira raised at low temperature. The nosZ community abundance was not affected by temperature, although N2O emission was varied with the operating temperature.

Response of nitrite accumulation and microbial characteristics to low-intensity static magnetic field during partial nitrification

Static magnetic field (SMF) with the intensity of 15 mT was applied during partial nitrification (PN) process to evaluate the impacts on nitrogen transformation and microbial characteristics. Results showed that the startup period of PN process at ambient temperature was markedly shortened by SMF, and the nitrite accumulation increased by 18% due to SMF exposure. The ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) amoA gene copy numbers in the reactor with SMF exposure were 40% higher than that without SMF exposure, indicating the AOB abundance was enriched by SMF exposure. The characteristics of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) changed accordingly. The extracellular protein increased by 30% due to SMF exposure, and it favored the aggregation of sludge flocs. The activated sludge with SMF exposure had a more compact structure, which was in favor of partial nitrification.