Main-Stream Deammonification Evaluation at Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant (AWTP)

Wastewater treatment plants in the Chesapeake Bay Region, USA are challenged to meet very low nitrogen and phosphorus discharge limits due to eutrophication issues. While many are successful in achieving their goals, the increase in cost to reach them is driving many municipalities to search for real alternative technologies to optimize the treatment efficiency and lower the cost per lb of N and P removed. This research was inspired by the success of a novel biological technology namely “deammonification”, which is used widely in Europe for treating nitrogen-rich recycle streams very efficiently using the anammox bacteria (Ref 5).Deammonification is a two step process where ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) aerobically oxidize approximately half of the ammonia to nitrite and the anammox organisms an-aerobically oxidize the remaining half of ammonia via nitrite produced in the first step to nitrogen gas without the need for organic carbon (Ref 2). The objective of the research was to try implementing the same concept to treat municipal wastewater in the main treatment stream at a given plant and thus maximize the potential benefits in cost savings. The research was aiming to identify appropriate operational strategies and design parameters to achieve deammonification for treating diluted municipal wastewaters. The study thus far revealed some key factors for successful process implementation and identified some future research focus areas.