Start-up Strategies for Anaerobic Ammonia Oxidation (Anammox) in In-Situ Nitrogen Removal from Polluted Groundwater in Rare Earth Mining Areas

Shuanglei Huang and Daishe Wu
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Shuanglei Huang: School of Resource, Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Nanchang University, Nanchang 330031, China
Daishe Wu: School of Resource, Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Nanchang University, Nanchang 330031, China

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 8, 1-17

Abstract: The tremendous input of ammonium and rare earth element (REE) ions released by the enormous consumption of (NH 4 ) 2 SO 4 in in situ leaching for ion-adsorption RE mining caused serious ground and surface water contamination. Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) was a sustainable in situ technology that can reduce this nitrogen pollution. In this research, in situ, semi in situ, and ex situ method of inoculation that included low-concentration (0.02 mg·L −1 ) and high-concentration (0.10 mg·L −1 ) lanthanum (La)(III) were adopted to explore effective start-up strategies for starting up anammox reactors seeded with activated sludge and anammox sludge. The reactors were refrigerated for 30 days at 4 °C to investigate the effects of La(III) during a period of low-temperature. The results showed that the in situ and semi in situ enrichment strategies with the addition of La(III) at a low-concentration La(III) addition (0.02 mg·L −1 ) reduced the length of time required to reactivate the sludge until it reached a state of stable anammox activity and high nitrogen removal efficiency by 60–71 days. The addition of La(III) promoted the formation of sludge floc with a compact structure that enabled it to resist the adverse effects of low temperature and so to maintain a high abundance of AnAOB and microbacterial community diversity of sludge during refrigeration period. The addition of La(III) at a high concentration caused the cellular percentage of AnAOB to decrease from 54.60 ± 6.19% to 17.35 ± 6.69% during the enrichment and reduced nitrogen removal efficiency to an unrecoverable level to post-refrigeration.

Keywords: anammox; start-up strategy; rare earth elements; La (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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