Sun, Yewei

Presented at WEFTEC 2023.

Titles from this speaker

Description: Combination of EBPR, Endogenous Denitrification, Partial...

Combination of EBPR, Endogenous Denitrification, Partial Nitrification/Denitrification and Anammox to Achieve Cost-effective Nutrient Removal

Abstract

To address the problem of eutrophication in the marine environment caused by excessive nutrient release and meet stringent nutrient discharge limits (e.g., TIN < 3 mg/L), a costeffective BNR (biological nutrient removal) technology is needed for equipping coastal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) with nutrient removal capacity. This pilot work was aimed to demonstrate how a conventional “A2O + tertiary MBBR” process can be easily modified to collectively achieve EBPR, endogenous denitrification, and Partial nitrification/ denitrification and anammox (PANDA) in one combination under novel system automation control. Nutrient discharge limits (average TIN < 3 mg/L) were met. Large amount of carbon and oxygen can be saved throughout the secondary and tertiary treatment innovation. The volume of aeration tank can be reduced.

Enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR), endogenous denitrification, and Partial nitrification/ denitrification and anammox (PANDA) can be incorporated in an 'A2O + tertiary MBBR' process to achieve cost-effective nutrient removal under system automation control. Nutrient discharge limits (average TIN < 3 mg/L) were met. Large amount of carbon and oxygen can be saved throughout the secondary and tertiary treatment innovation. The volume of aeration tank can be reduced.

SpeakerWANG, JIEFU

Presentation time

09:30:00

10:00:00

Session time

08:30:00

10:00:00

SessionPdNA Whole Plant Considerations

Session locationRoom S504a - Level 5

TopicIntermediate Level, Nutrients

Author(s)

Wang, Jiefu

Author(s)J. Wang 1; Y. Sun 2 ; W. Khunjar 3; Z Wang 1; M. Winkler 4; R.K. Goel 5;

Author affiliation(s)Department of Biological Systems Engineering, Virginia Tech 1; Hazen and Sawyer 2 ; Hazen and Sawyer 3; Department of Biological Systems Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA 1; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Washington 4; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Utah 5;

SourceProceedings of the Water Environment Federation

Document typeConference Paper

PublisherWater Environment Federation

Print publication date Oct 2023

DOI10.2175/193864718825159157

Volume / Issue

Content sourceWEFTEC

Word count15

Effect of Feast/Famine Conditions on Continuous Flow Aerobic Granulation

Abstract

In this study, continuous flow aerobic granulation was successfully achieved in plug flow reactors (PFRs) when the number of completely stirred tank reactors (CSTRs) in series decreased from 10 to 8. It was found that the feast/famine conditions of COD and NH3 always presented in the PFR despite the great influent composition fluctuation, and the morphology of the sludge will transform from fluffy flocs to granules along with the transition from feast to famine which also leads to the sludge settleability improvement. The transformation from granules to loose and fluffy flocs during feast period may attribute to the fact that those fluffy flocs possess better organic absorption capacity thus can absorb more organic during feast period to support the bacterial growth during the famine period. Besides, it was proved in this study that flocs and granules are two phenotypes of the activated sludge, and it was the feast to famine operation that caused the transformation between these two phenotypes. Nevertheless, although phenotype of the sludge could transform from flocs to granules during the transition from feast to famine conditions, it was found that an excessive famine period may lead to granules disintegration

SpeakerSun, Yewei

Presentation time

13:50:00

14:10:00

Session time

13:30:00

14:30:00

SessionKinetic Considerations for Granulation and Densification

Session number401

TopicMunicipal Wastewater Treatment Design, Nutrients, Research and Innovation, Resilience, Disaster Planning and Recovery

Author(s)

R. AngelottiY. Sun,M. BrooksZ. Wang

Author(s)R. Angelotti2; Y. Sun1; ,3; M. Brooks2; Z. Wang1;

Author affiliation(s)Occoquan Laboratory, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech1; Upper Occoquan Service Authority, VA2; Hazen and Sawyer3

SourceProceedings of the Water Environment Federation

Document typeConference Paper

PublisherWater Environment Federation

Print publication date Oct 2020

DOI10.2175/193864718825157396

Volume / Issue

Content sourceWEFTEC

Word count10

Description: Leveraging Densified Activated Sludge and Partial...

Leveraging Densified Activated Sludge and Partial Nitrification/Denitrification/Anammox within an Integrated Advanced Water Treatment Facility for Large-Scale Potable Reuse

Abstract

The Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts (Districts) have been exploring options for implementing nitrogen removal at the Joint Water Pollution Control Plant (JWPCP), a 400-MGD capacity high purity oxygen activated sludge (HPOAS) facility, due to potential reuse and regulatory drivers. This paper summarizes pilot-scale demonstrations of a secondary BNR (Densified Activated Sludge, DAS) and a tertiary BNR (tertiary moving bed biofilm reactor, TMBBR). These approaches has proven successful at meeting the nitrogen removal targets and provide program enhancements, including densification and PANDA/PdNA.

The Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts are exploring nitrogen removal options at the Joint Water Pollution Control Plant (JWPCP), a 400-MGD capacity high purity oxygen activated sludge (HPOAS) facility, to address potential reuse and regulatory drivers. Two potential approaches developed were a three stage A2O configuration and a tertiary moving bed biofilm reactor. Both approaches were successfully pilot tested and demonstrated the ability to meeting nitrogen removal targets.

SpeakerSun, Yewei

Presentation time

13:30:00

14:00:00

Session time

13:30:00

15:00:00

SessionReconsidering Biological Treatment for Water Purification: Reuse-nutrient Removal-nexus I

Session locationRoom S404c - Level 4

TopicIntermediate Level, Municipal Wastewater Treatment Design, Nutrients, Potable Reuse, Water Reuse and Reclamation

Author(s)

Sun, Yewei

Author(s)Y. Sun 1; B. Danker 2 ; R. Deco 3; H. Long 3; M. Liu 4; A. Laleian 5; N. Melitas 4; B. Mansell 5; P. Ackman 6; P. Pitt 7; W. Khunjar 8; R. Latimer 9; H. Noteboom 10; R.M. Deco 3; H.C. Long

Author affiliation(s)Hazen & Sawyer 1; Hazen & Sawyer 2 ; Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts 3; Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts 3; Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts 4; Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, 24501 Figueroa Street, Carson, CA, 90745 5; Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts 4; Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts 5; Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts 6; Hazen & Sawyer 7; Hazen & Sawyer 8; Hazen & Sawyer 9; 10; Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts 3; Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts 3;

SourceProceedings of the Water Environment Federation

Document typeConference Paper

PublisherWater Environment Federation

Print publication date Oct 2023

DOI10.2175/193864718825159099

Volume / Issue

Content sourceWEFTEC

Word count19

Description: Polishing Tertiary Effluent Nitrogen Via The Synergy Between Methanol-Driven Partial...

Polishing Tertiary Effluent Nitrogen Via The Synergy Between Methanol-Driven Partial Denitrification and Anaerobic Ammonia Oxidation In Moving Bed Biofilm Reactors

Abstract

Introduction
Tertiary moving bed biofilm reactors (MBBRs) have been used as a polishing process for biological nitrogen removal (BNR) to meet low effluent TN concentration, e.g.,< 3 mg TN/L. In these applications, supplemental carbon is often needed to drive nitrate removal. Partial nitrification/denitrification coupled with anaerobic ammonia oxidation (PdNA, PANDA) process can result in capacity, chemical and energy savings throughout the secondary and tertiary processes at treatment facilities if properly applied in tertiary MBBR processes. This is because anammox is an autotrophic process can convert ammonium and nitrite to dinitrogen without external carbon while aeration requirements can be reduced because only a fraction of ammonium needs to be oxidized (Xu et al. 2020). Partial denitrification has indeed emerged as a promising approach for stimulating stable NO2-N accumulation because of the challenge in suppressing nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB) under the low mainstream temperature and nitrogen level (Zhang et al. 2019). Briefly, the mechanisms behind PD can be attributed to: i) imbalanced activities of NO3-N and NO2-N reductases, which can be controlled by carbon source types and dosages and HRT; and ii) selection and enrichment of denitratating community. This work documents results from piloting efforts to evaluating the feasibility of using methanol driven PdNA/PANDA to reduce carbon and aeration demand at the Fairfax County Noman M. Cole Pollution Control Plant (NCPCP) and achieve TN limits less than 3 mg/L. The objectives of this study are to: i) verify the feasibility of performing nitrogen removal in the tertiary effluent via the PdNA/PANDA with methanol as external carbon source; ii) evaluate the system performance and the effluent quality under the diurnal and seasonal influent fluctuation; iii) determine the optimal operating conditions (carbon dosages and frequencies, etc.); and iv) make recommendations for full-scale operation.
Materials and methods Reactor setup:
A MBBR treatment train dosed with methanol was operated on site at Noman M. Cole Jr., Pollution Control Plant (NCPCP) (Figure 1a). Briefly, two 14 L working volume anoxic MBBRs filled with K1 media at a volumetric fraction of 45% were connected in sequence and then followed by a 8 L working volume reaeration reactor filled with K1 media at a volumetric fraction of 32% to simulate the full-scale NCPCP MBBR train used in NCPCP. K1 media with established methylotrophs were collected from the same full-scale MBBR train (Figures 1a and b). The designed HRTs of each anoxic and aeration cell in Figures 1a and b were 19.4 min and 10.3 min, respectively. Realtime feed-forward control: Real time NO3-N, NO2-N, NH4+-N, and dissolved oxygen (DO) data of tertiary effluent from Chemscan real-time analyzer and DO probe (Figure 1b) were sent to Spyder (python 3.8) in a PC. A programmable pump receiving signals from the PC can precisely dose chemicals to the systems according to the following controller formulas: NH4+-N feed = NO3-Ninf or a setpoint (1) CODfeed = (CODfeed/NO3-Ninf)setpoint Ã— (NO3-Ninf â# ’ NO3-Neff, setpoint) + (CODfeed/DOinf)setpoint Ã—DOinf (2) Activity Testing: In-situ batch tests for AMX activity were conducted by dosing ammonium chloride at 10 mg NH4+-N /L and sodium nitrite at 12 mg NO2-N /L after isolating reactors and suspending COD dosing for one hours prior to the batch testing. NO3-N, NO2-N, NH4+-N, and sCOD were measured with Hach tubes in 0.45Î¼m filtered grab samples of reactors at various intervals of time ranging from 5 to 30 minutes for a period of 2.5 hours. qPCR analysis: Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) was performed to quantify the copy numbers of total bacterial 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene, the 16S rRNA of Candidatus Kuenenia and hzsB gene on a QuantStudio 3 thermocycler (Applied Biosystems, Waltham, MA). Each 20-Î¼L qPCR reaction mixture contained 10 Î¼L of 2Ã— SYBRâ„¢ Green PCR Master Mix with ROX (Life Technologies, Carlsbad, CA), 1 Î¼L each of forward and reverse primers (0.2 Î¼M), 7 Î¼L molecular-grade water (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO) and 1 Î¼L DNA template. The thermal cycling conditions for qPCR amplification were as follows: 95 â„ƒ for 2 min, 40 cycles at 95 â„ƒ for 15 s, 60 â„ƒ for 15 s, 72 â„ƒ for 20 s, melt-curve for 45 s (95 â„ƒ for 15 s, 60 â„ƒ for 15 s and 95 â„ƒ for 15 s). All qPCR runs had an efficiency between 90% and 110% with an R2 > 0.95. Each gene was quantified in duplicate with a standard curve and negative control (with water as template). Results were reported as absolute abundance (copies per gram dry weight). Results and discussion PD performance: As can be seen from Figure 2a, after the adjustment of carbon dosing by decreasing NO3-N setpoint and increasing COD/N ratios, NO3-N concentration in Cell B dropped to around 1 mg/L after 180-day operation. Meanwhile, NO2-N residual (0.7 Â± 0.2 mg/L) and stable PD efficiency (43.7 Â± 4.8%) were achieved in Cell A (Figure 2b). Le et al. (2019) reported that methanol-driven PD was only observed in batch test but not in continuous flow reactors. Conversely, in our study, stable PD was achieved after 6-month operation which indicates that culture acclimation might have played an important role, and methanol-driven PD actually can be achieved in MBBRs fed with low nitrogen concentrations. This is in line with the findings reported by Campolong (2019) who also found that methanol had a lower PD efficiency than glycerol and acetate during the startup, and that the process efficiency gradually improved over time as the community acclimated (Figure 2b) AMX activity and its contribution to total inorganic nitrogen (TIN) removal: Given the stable PD performance, strong AMX activity has been observed in the in-situ batch test (Figure 3a), which is in line with the abundance of Anammox 16S rRNA and hzsB measured by qPCR in Figure 3b. As a result, between 1.5 and 2.0 mg/L anoxic NH4+-N removal was observed and low effluent TIN concentrations (< 3 mg/L) were achieved in MBBR pilot after 6-month operation. AMX were estimated to contribute 43.4 Â± 5.5% of the TIN removed (Figure 2c). This work is one of the few where PdNA/PANDA studies were performed in secondary or tertiary processes where NO3-N concentration was well below 10 mg/L (Du et al. 2019, You et al. 2020). Figure 2c shows that methanol can be used as a suitable carbon source for PdNA/PANDA in a low nitrogen environment. Carbon savings: The Î”sCOD/Î”TIN profile in Figure 4 showed that the pilot reactor consumed 41.4% less COD for the removal of a unit TIN as compared to the full-scale MBBR operated in the same plant. Hence, methanol can be used as a more cost-effective and eco-friendly carbon source for full-scale MBBRs applied for polishing the effluent TIN.

In this study, a tertiary treatment train (moving bed bioreactor) dosed with methanol was operated on site to remove nitrogen from secondary effluent. This pilot tertiary treatment phase was operated to test the feasibility of achieving TN limits < 3 mg/L using partial nitrification/denitrification/anammox. The results indicate that it is feasible to achieve methanol-driven PdNA in tertiary MBBR with low nitrogen concentrations in the long term.

SpeakerSun, Yewei

Presentation time

08:30:00

08:55:00

Session time

08:30:00

10:00:00

TopicAdvanced Level, Municipal Wastewater Treatment Design, Nutrients, Research and Innovation

Author(s)

Sun, Yewei

Author(s)Jiefu Wang1; Wendell Khunjar2; Yewei Sun2; Greg Pace2; Ankit Pathak2; Michael McGrath3; Mujahid Ali3; Zhi-Wu Wang1

Author affiliation(s)Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA1; Hazen and Sawyer, Fairfax, VA2; Norman M. Cole Jr., Pollution Control Plant, Lorton, VA3

SourceProceedings of the Water Environment Federation

Document typeConference Paper

PublisherWater Environment Federation

Print publication date Oct 2022

DOI10.2175/193864718825158495

Volume / Issue

Content sourceWEFTEC

Word count21

Description: Successful Full-scale Demonstration of Nitrogen Removal in a High Purity Oxygen...

Successful Full-scale Demonstration of Nitrogen Removal in a High Purity Oxygen Facility with No Infrastructure Modification

Abstract

The Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts (Districts) have been exploring options for implementing nitrogen removal at the Joint Water Pollution Control Plant (JWPCP), a 400-MGD capacity high purity oxygen activated sludge (HPOAS) facility, due to potential reuse and regulatory drivers. This paper summarizes a fullscale demonstration of a novel concept of utilizing HPOAS for nitrogen removal with no infrastructure modification. This approach has proven successful at providing robust nitrogen removal and provides a significant benefit to the JWPCP and potentially other HPOAS facilities.

The Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts are exploring nitrogen removal options at the Joint Water Pollution Control Plant (JWPCP), a 400-MGD capacity high purity oxygen activated sludge (HPOAS) facility, to address potential reuse and regulatory drivers. Through a full-scale demonstration of the high-purity oxygen Ludzack-Ettinger (HPOLE) process, robust nitrogen removal was achieve, indicating that HPOLE provides a significant benefit to the JWPCP and is scalable to other HPOAS facilities.

SpeakerDanker, Bryce

Presentation time

13:30:00

14:00:00

Session time

13:30:00

15:00:00

SessionSweat Your Assets Off: BNR Optimization

Session locationRoom S403b - Level 4

TopicIntermediate Level, Nutrients

Author(s)

Danker, Bryce

Author(s)B. Danker 1; P. Pitt 2 ; R. Latimer 3; P. Hsia 4; M. Liu 4; B. Mansell 5; G. Caro 5; S. Patel 5; K. Panesar 5; W. Khunjar 6; Y. Sun 7; H. Noteboom 8; N. Melitas 4; B. Danker 1;

Author affiliation(s)Hazen & Sawyer 1; Hazen & Sawyer 2 ; Hazen & Sawyer 3; Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts 4; Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts 4; Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts 5; Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts 5; Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts 5; Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts 5; Hazen & Sawyer 6; Hazen & Sawyer 7; Hazen & Sawyer 8; Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts 4; Hazen & Sawyer 1;

SourceProceedings of the Water Environment Federation

Document typeConference Paper

PublisherWater Environment Federation

Print publication date Oct 2023

DOI10.2175/193864718825159005

Volume / Issue

Content sourceWEFTEC

Word count17