Biological denitrification of reverse osmosis brine concentrates: I. Batch reactor and chemostat studies

A major technological concern with reverse osmosis in water purification, wastewater treatment, and water reclamation or recycling is the production of brine concentrates high in ammonia or nitrogen. This project addresses biological denitrification of reverse osmosis brine concentrates in a bioactive fluidized bed adsorber reactor (FBAR), accomplished in four stages. The first three stages are described in this paper, while the final stage is addressed in the companion paper (Ersever et al. 2007). The first stage optimized an FBAR to produce nitrified brine for subsequent denitrification studies. The second stage employed batch reactors to evaluate denitrification parameters such as temperature, pH, total dissolved solids, and carbon-to-nitrogen ratio. The specific denitrification rate was maximum at a temperature of 35 °C, pH of 8.0, and carbon-to-nitrogen ratio of 1.8. The third stage involved chemostats to determine Monod parameters under nitrate-, nitrite-, and carbon-limiting conditions. A biokinetic model was employed to simulate chemostat dynamics and to estimate the biological parameters. The final stage entailed FBAR denitrification experiments under different hydraulic retention times, nitrate concentrations, and packing media; simultaneous denitrification and sulfate reduction were addressed. A second FBAR used in series with the first achieved an overall sulfate reduction of 99%, and a biofilter effectively removed the hydrogen sulfide generated.