Efficiency of Sidestream Nitritation for Modern Two-Stage Activated Sludge Plants

Thomas Baumgartner, Lydia Jahn, Vanessa Parravicini, Karl Svardal and Jörg Krampe ()
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Thomas Baumgartner: Institute for Water Quality and Resource Management, TU Wien, 1040 Vienna, Austria
Lydia Jahn: Institute for Water Quality and Resource Management, TU Wien, 1040 Vienna, Austria
Vanessa Parravicini: Institute for Water Quality and Resource Management, TU Wien, 1040 Vienna, Austria
Karl Svardal: Institute for Water Quality and Resource Management, TU Wien, 1040 Vienna, Austria
Jörg Krampe: Institute for Water Quality and Resource Management, TU Wien, 1040 Vienna, Austria

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 19, 1-11

Abstract: The operational costs of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are mainly driven by electric power consumption, making the energy-efficient operation an all-time present target for engineers and operators. A well known approach to reduce the demand for purchased electricity is the operation of an anaerobic sludge stabilisation process. Although anaerobic digesters make it possible to recover large quantities of energy-rich methane gas, additional strategies are required to handle the increased internal return flow of nitrogen, which arises with the sludge dewatering effluent (SDE). SDE treatment increases the oxygen demand and in turn the energy required for aeration. In this study, different SDE treatment processes were compared with regard to the treatment in mainstream, sidestream nitritation, as well as nitritation combined with anammox for two-stage and single-stage WWTPs. Although SDE treatment in sidestream nitritation was found to have no effect on the energy demand of single-stage WWTPs, this concept allows the treatment capacity in the activated sludge tank to be raised, while contributing to a high nitrogen removal under carbon limitation. In contrast, SDE sidestream treatment showed great potential for saving energy at two-stage WWTPs, whereby sidestream nitritation and the further treatment in the first stage was found to be the most efficient concept, with a savings of approx. 11% of the aeration energy.

Keywords: energy efficiency; SDE treatment; nitritation; two-stage WWTP (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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