<p> Nitrogen and phosphorus are known to cause eutrophic conditions in lakes and rivers, resulting ultimately in deteriorating water quality in these natural systems. Nitrate poses a threat to the ecosystem and aquatic life, and also has an adverse impact on human health when present in water in large concentrations. Regulatory bodies such as the Federal EPA and state agencies are imposing increasingly stringent effluent standards on point sources to protect and preserve natural water bodies. Technologies using biological nutrient removal processes are being incorporated into the waste treatment scheme at most wastewater treatment plants in an attempt to limit nutrient discharge. The use of completely-submerged anoxic rotating biological contactors (RBCs) to remove NO<sub>3</sub>-N is a relatively new concept, although RBCs have been used for removal of ammonia and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) for some time. In this study, HDPE disks (10” x 9”) obtained from the Greater Peoria Sanitary District (GPSD) were used as RBC media and mounted on a shaft rotating at 1 rpm in two 20-liter enclosed reactors. At a flowrate of 45 liters per day, synthetic wastewater containing sodium citrate as the carbon source and nitrate as the electron acceptor was used as influent. The duration of each experiment was about 30 days, during which, overall nitrate removal and denitrification rate constants were estimated under different experimental conditions. Factors affecting startup growth were also identified. </p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:1554015 |
| Date | 28 May 2014 |
| Creators | Hartmann, Derek R. |
| Publisher | Bradley University |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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