Nitrogen removal in anaerobic ammonium oxidation process-based bioelectrochemical system.

Abstract

Nitrogen removal process was studied in a microbial electrosynthesis (BES) system at different applied voltages. Three different inoculation methods were compared and cyclic voltammograms were generated to evaluate changes on the bioelectrodes. Results from this study showed that after electrode inoculation gradually lowering the applied potential over a long period of time results in improvement of the nitrogen removal rates. Cyclic voltammetry sowed a strong correlation between the nitrogen removal efficiency of a biocathode and its specific capacitance. This study contributes to the idea that an electrical potential of -0.5 V could result in an increase of ~30% on the nitrogen removal rate of a bioelectrode using anammox process.