• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.775-780
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• 2009

The efficacy of nitrifying sludge existed in biological nutrient removal process was examined for possible removal of endocrine disrupting chemical(EDC) in the effluent of wastewater treatment plant. Some of ammonia oxidizing bacteria causes ammonia oxidation mediated by ammonia monooxygenase(AMO) activity, which has low substrate specificity resulting in cometablic degradation of several chemicals. In this study, the removal of three model EDCs such as bisphenol A(BPA), nonylphenol(NP) and dibutyl phthalate(DBP) was studied in batch cultures using nitrifying sludge, BOD-oxidizing sludge with low nitrifying activity, and sterilized sludge. Nitrifying sludge showed higher initial removal rates in all batches of three EDCs when it was fed with ammonium as an energy source. The acclimation time was required for the removal of EDCs in batches using BOD-oxidizing sludge or nitritefed nitrifying sludge. That retardation seemed to attribute to the slow growth of cells using the EDCs while ammonium-fed nitrifying sludge could degrade EDCs through simultaneous cooxidation with ammonia oxidation. Sterilized sludge was also tested under the same conditions in order to find the contribution of physical adsorption to the removal of EDCs. About 10~20% of initial EDCs dose was removed when using sterilized sludge. Thus the biological activity is likely to play major role for the degradation of BPA, NP, and DBP rather than the physical adsorption from wastewater.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.140-144
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• 2016

Owing to the kinetic differences in ammonia oxidation among ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms (AOM), there is no standard set of kinetic values that can be used as a representative set for nitrifying wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) design. As a result, this study clarified a link between the half-saturation constants for ammonia oxidation (Ks) and the dominant ammonia-oxidizing bacterial (AOB) groups in sludge from full-scale WWTPs and laboratory-scale nitrifying reactors. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction analyses revealed that AOB affiliated with the Nitrosomonas oligotropha cluster were the dominant AOM groups in the sludge taken from the low-ammonia-level WWTPs, while AOB associate with the Nitrosomonas europaea cluster comprised the majority of AOM groups in the sludge taken from the high-ammonia-level WWTPs and nitrifying reactors. A respirometric assay demonstrated that the ammonia Ks values for the high-ammonia-level WWTPs and nitrifying reactors were higher than those of the low-ammonia-level plants. Using the Ks values of available AOM cultures as a reference, the Ks values of the analyzed sludge were mainly influenced by the dominant AOB species. These findings implied that.different sets of kinetic values may be required for WWTPs with different dominant AOM species for more accurate WWTP design and operations.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.28-35
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• 2018

$17{\alpha}-ethinylestradiol$ (EE2), a synthetic estrogen which interfere the endocrine and reproductive function in living organisms, has been found extensively to be deposited into municipal wastewater treatment plants and the environment via human excretion. EE2 has long been known to be efficiently cometabolized by ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) during ammonia ($NH_3$) oxidation. Current study aims to investigate the effect of culture history on the biotransformation of EE2 by nitrifying sludge which was enriched under different ammonia loading rates in continuous flow reactors. Result showed that past growth condition largely affected not only the metabolic rate of $NH_3$ oxidation but also EE2 cometabolism. Sludge previously acclimated with higher $NH_3$ loads as well as sludge dominated with AOB belong to high growth cluster (Nitrosomonas europaea-Nitrosococcus mobilis) showed higher rate of EE2 biotransformation than those one being acclimated with lower $NH_3$ loads because of its ability to provide more reducing power from $NH_3$ oxidation. Moreover, the correlation between the degradation rates of $NH_3$ and EE2 was higher in sludge being acclimated with higher load of $NH_3$ in comparison with other sludge. Implication of the findings emphasized the role of volumetric $NH_3$ loading rate in determining EE2 removal in wastewater treatment system.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.1079-1085
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to find the operational characteristics of nitrifier-dominated membrane bioreactor (MBR), which has been extensively studied for organic removal, especially in terms of nitrite ($NO_2$-N) build-up and membrane fouling. Membrane fouling is one of the important factor which determines the economics of MBR system. The characteristics of membrane fouling was monitored in terms of the fouling indices such as sludge volume index (SVI), the concentration of total organic carbon (TOC) and extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) in a membrane permeate or sludge extract, the absorbance of supernatant at 260 nm. Most of index values except for protein concentration in EPS had a close relation with the increase of suction pressure and SVI value. Nitrifying MBR was superior to the conventional organic-oxidizing MBR in terms of membrane fouling since the fouling index value of nitrifying MBR was lower than that of BOD-oxidizing MBR.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.293-298
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• 2011

Nitrifying bacterial community structures of suspended and attached biomasses in a full-scale integrated fixed-film activated sludge process were investigated by analyzing 16S rRNA gene sequences obtained from pyrosequencing. The suspended biomass had a higher number of ammonia-oxidizing bacterial sequences (0.8% of total sequences) than the attached biomass (0.07%), although most of the sequences were within the Nitrosomonas oligotropha lineage in both biomasses. Nitrospira-like nitrite-oxidizing bacterial sequences were retrieved in the suspended biomass (0.06%), not in the attached biomass, whereas the existence of Nitrobacter-like sequences was not evident. The suspended biomass had higher nitrification activity (1.13 mg N/TSS/h) than the attached biomass (0.07 mg N/TSS/h). Overall, the results made it possible to conclude the importance of the suspended biomass, rather than the attached biomass, in nitrification in the wastewater treatment process studied.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.595-604
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• 2006

The growth characteristics of Commercially Developed Nitrifying Bacteria (CDNB) were studied in laboratoryscale. CDNB, a pure, artificially isolated bacterium, was cultivated to produce Cultivated Nitrifying Bacterium Group (CNBG). The average ammonia removal rate of CDNB was 0.0234g $NH_4^+-N/g$ MLSS/hr. CNBG was produced in the batch reactor and Specific Nitrification Rate (SNR) was determined at 0.0107g $NH_4^+-N/g$ MLSS/hr. The SNR of CNBG was lower than the SNR of CDNB because the diverse and multi-cultured microbial growth took place during cultivation. The effect of the temperatures and the mixing ratios of sewage and culture solution on the SNR of CNBG was studied. The SNR of CNBG, 0.0107g $NH_4^+-N/g$ MLSS/hr at $27^{\circ}C$, decreased to 0.0048g $NH_4^+-N/g$ MLSS/hr at $15^{\circ}C$, and temperature coefficient (${\Theta}$) was calculated to be 1.07. With the varied sewage mixing ratios, the SNR of CNBG remained unchanged. Activated sludge reactors maintaining an MLSS of 2,000mg/L at HRT of 4 h were operated under conditions in which dosage of Concentrated CNBG Solution (CCNBGS, 10,000mg MLSS/L) and application method of CNBG were varied. The reactor with 20mL of CCNBGS took shorter time to oxidize $NH_4^+-N$ reaching 1mg/L than the reactor with 5mL of CCNBGS showing that higher dosages were associated with greater mass removal of $NH_4^+-N$. However, the total removal was not great. In terms of different methods of CNBG application, reactor seeded with 20mL of CCNBGS took 3days to reach 1mg/L of effluent ammonia concentration while reactor dosed with 20% (v/v) CNBG implanted media took 2days. Both the control reactor and the reactor dosed with 20% (v/v) media only did not reach 1mg $NH_4^+-N/L$ after operating 18days. The reactor with CNBG implanted media had the highest $NH_4^+-N$ removal rate because of maintaining high concentration of Nitrifying Oxidizing Bacteria (NOM), and is regarded as an appropriate method for the activated sludge process.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.129-137
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• 2011

The aim of this study is to evaluate the biodegradability of the micro-contaminant, clindamycin antibiotic, under nitrifying activated sludge (AS) condition. Based on the short-term clindamycin degradation batch test at an environmentally relevant concentration (10 ppb), clindamycin disappearance half-life ($t_{0.5}$) was estimated to be 9.1hrs under nitrification condition. However, biodegradation was slower (26.1 hrs) when nitrification was inhibited. Also, one clindamycin metabolite was detected under nitrification condition, but not under inhibited nitrification condition. Based on the mass spectra, the metabolite is suspected to be clindamycin-sulfoxide (m/z 441), which is known to have antimicrobial activity. The metabolite was not degraded during the long term batch study, suggesting that under the conditions tested, biodegradation of clindamycin in activated sludge systems is ineffective.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.87-93
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• 2015

In this study, the inhibitory effect of toxic metals was investigated on the activated sludge of the municipal sewage treatment plant. The allowable concentration of toxic metals was also estimated for the stable operation of the biological treatment process. The single and mixture toxicity of $Cu^{2+}$, $Al^{3+}$ and $Zn^{2+}$ were evaluated for the activated sludge microorganisms. As a result, nitrifying microorganisms were more susceptible than heterotrophic microorganisms. $IC_{10}$ (Inhibition Concentration of 10%) of $Cu^{2+}$, $Al^{3+}$ and $Zn^{2+}$ for the nitrifying microorganisms was 3 mg/L, 7 mg/L and 25 mg/L, respectively. The mixture toxicity showed three times more sensitive than the single toxicity. The concentrations of $Cu^{2+}$, $Al^{3+}$ and $Zn^{2+}$ to minimize the inhibitory effect on organic matter removal and nitrification in batch experiments were found to be 1.3 mg/L, 2.5 mg/L and 6.3 mg/L.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.23-29
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• 2014

In this study, aerobic granules were applied to a lab-scale aerobic granule sludge airlift reactor (AGSAR) and the ammonium nitrogen oxidation performance was evaluated at different ammonium nitrogen loading rate (NLR). At least 99% of the initial ammonium nitrogen was oxidized at an NLR of 0.27 and 0.53 kg $NH_4{^+}-N/m^3{\cdot}day$, for both aerobic granules (control), and nitrifying aerobic granules (NAGs). The ammonium nitrogen oxidation deteriorated, when the NLR was increased to 1.07 kg $NH_4{^+}-N/m^3{\cdot}day$. The NAGs were characterized by complete nitrification, while partial nitrification was observed in the control.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.29-35
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• 1999

The purpose of this study is to remove the organics, nitrogen and phosphorus using biosorption for the domestic sewage. The new process using biosorption is based on the methods of contact-stabilization, which remove the organics by absorbing them to the surface of the microorganism in the activated sludge. This process consists of biosorption reactor, biosorption clarifier, nitrifying reactor, nitrifying clarifier, denitrifying reactor, phosphorus uptake(polishing) reactor and final clarifier. The efficiency of removal could be reached 91% for organics, 76% for nitrogen, 90% for phosphorus in Eujungbu pilot plant. We operated the plant which irrigated $10m^3$ per day for sewage. During our operation the HRT(Hydraulic Retention time) was maintained for 10.5hr, but it could be reduced as 8.5hr according to our operation results.