Impact/Purpose:

Constructed wetlands are a low-energy alternative to conventional methods for removal of nitrogen from high-ammonia wastewaters. Literature on constructed wetlands stresses oxygen supply to trigger nitrification and denitrification for biological nitrogen removal. However, integration of partial nitrification and anaerobic ammonium oxidation into constructed wetlands will increase nitrogen removal efficiency without artificial aeration and minimize greenhouse gas emission. During Spring 2008, students in Ecological Engineering for Waste Management course and Introduction to Ecological Engineering course are initiating research into ecologically-engineered treatment systems. Students will design and test innovative mesocosm constructed wetlands to incorporate partial nitrification and anaerobic ammonium oxidation for removal of nitrogen from dairy wastewater.

Description:

SUNY-ESF has a multidisciplinary P3 Team, although it is mainly composed of undergraduate students in forest engineering and graduate students in environmental and resources engineering. The Team has successfully enriched anammox bacteria in two vertical flow baffled biofilters that are packed with marble chips. More than 100 students and researchers from SUNY-ESF, Syracuse University, and abroad have visited the anammox enrichment biofilters. However, the effect of gravel size on anammox needs to be concluded through long-term operation under different conditions. Based on the operational results of six wetland treatment systems, the Team has constructed an integrative wetland treatment system that was seeded with anammox biofilm and water in the anammox enrichment biofilters. This wetland treatment system incorporates two types of subsurface wetlands and free water surface wetlands in series. It has been operated in a greenhouse by batch mode for 7 cycles to remove nitrogen from synthetic dairy wastewater (90 mg N/L as ammonium chloride). The in-situ measurements and lab analytical results have showed that marble chips are ideal, natural packing materials of subsurface wetlands to integrate nitritation and anammox. Ammonium-N and TN removal rates of two subsurface wetlands with marble chips, 100 mg/d and 48.8 mg/d respectively on average, demonstrated a significant maturation process across the 7 cycles. Free water surface wetlands efficiently removed N employing nitritation, anammox and denitrification. The free water surface wetland that received the effluent of the two marble-chips subsurface wetlands had average ammonium-N and TN removal rates of 119 mg/d and 194 mg/d respectively. The marble-chips subsurface wetlands − free water surface wetland series had a removal efficiency of 68% for ammonium and 57% for TN on average. A polishing wetland further removed 49% ammonia and 55% TN. Ammonium and TN mass reduction followed zeroorder kinetics, suggesting that nitrogen removal will be further improved with biomass development. The wetland treatment system only consumed 0.06 kW⋅h of non- renewable energy for treatment of per m3 wastewater. Emergy sustainability indices would increase if system size was doubled, indicating that a demonstration project in Phase II would yield increased sustainability.

URLs/Downloads:

Final Progress Report

Record Details:

Record Type:PROJECT( ABSTRACT )

Start Date:08/15/2008

Completion Date:08/14/2009

Record ID: 200567

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Related Organizations:

Role :OWNER

Organization Name :SUNY COLLEGE OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND FORESTRY

Mailing Address :One Forestry Dr

Citation :Syracuse

State :NY

Zip Code :13210

Project Information:

Approach :

Culturing bacteria for anaerobic ammonium oxidation is difficult due to their slow growth rate. During Fall 2008, students in the Water Pollution Engineering class will develop two microcosm biofilters, which will be operated under optimal conditions to enrich bacteria for anaerobic ammonium oxidation. The biofilters will be evaluated with mass balance analysis and reaction modeling. Students in the Spring 2009 Ecological Engineering courses will build and operate the mesocosm constructed wetlands, which will be seeded with the bacteria from the microcosm biofilters. Treatment performance and operational conditions of the mesocosm constructed wetlands with different configurations and operating modes will be tracked by field measurements and laboratory analyses. Design considerations will be derived from the monitoring results. The most efficient design will be scaled up at a dairy farm for demonstration in Phase II.

Cost :$10,000.00

Research Component :Pollution Prevention/Sustainable Development

Approach :

Culturing bacteria for anaerobic ammonium oxidation is difficult due to their slow growth rate. During Fall 2008, students in the Water Pollution Engineering class will develop two microcosm biofilters, which will be operated under optimal conditions to enrich bacteria for anaerobic ammonium oxidation. The biofilters will be evaluated with mass balance analysis and reaction modeling. Students in the Spring 2009 Ecological Engineering courses will build and operate the mesocosm constructed wetlands, which will be seeded with the bacteria from the microcosm biofilters. Treatment performance and operational conditions of the mesocosm constructed wetlands with different configurations and operating modes will be tracked by field measurements and laboratory analyses. Design considerations will be derived from the monitoring results. The most efficient design will be scaled up at a dairy farm for demonstration in Phase II.

Cost :$10,000.00

Research Component :P3 Challenge Area - Agriculture

Approach :

Culturing bacteria for anaerobic ammonium oxidation is difficult due to their slow growth rate. During Fall 2008, students in the Water Pollution Engineering class will develop two microcosm biofilters, which will be operated under optimal conditions to enrich bacteria for anaerobic ammonium oxidation. The biofilters will be evaluated with mass balance analysis and reaction modeling. Students in the Spring 2009 Ecological Engineering courses will build and operate the mesocosm constructed wetlands, which will be seeded with the bacteria from the microcosm biofilters. Treatment performance and operational conditions of the mesocosm constructed wetlands with different configurations and operating modes will be tracked by field measurements and laboratory analyses. Design considerations will be derived from the monitoring results. The most efficient design will be scaled up at a dairy farm for demonstration in Phase II.

Cost :$10,000.00

Research Component :P3 Challenge Area - Water

Project IDs:

ID Code :SU833910

Project type :EPA Grant