Start-up strategies of membrane-aerated biofilm reactor (MABR) for completely autotrophic nitrogen removal

Completely autotrophic nitrogen removal, coupling aerobic and anaerobic ammonium oxidation, can be achieved via redox stratified biofilms growing on gas-permeable membranes. These sequential reactions are mediated by aerobic and anaerobic ammonium oxidizing bacteria (AOB and AnAOB). The major downside of this process stems from a long start-up period due to the slow growth rate of AnAOB. Therefore, two different start-up strategies, i.e., continuous inoculation of AnAOB and sequential batch inoculation of AOB and AnAOB, were tested in two laboratory scale membrane-aerated biofilm reactor (MABRs). Results indicate that the continuous inoculation strategy was more rapid and effective to achieve nitrogen removal than the sequential inoculation approach. Nitrogen loss in the reactor continuously inoculated with AnAOB was observed after 120 day operation, with an average NH4+-N and TN removal rate of 3.41 and 1.95 g-N/m2-membrane/day, respectively. On the other hand, nitrogen loss was hardly observed in the MABR with the sequential inoculation strategy.