حذف نیترات از آب با استفاده از کنسرسیوم باکتری‌های دنیتریفایر تثبیت شده بر روی کربن فعال در یک راکتور بستر شناور

Background : Nitrogen-containing ions such as nitrate and nitrite occur widely in a variety of water sources. This pollutant causes health problems such as the blue-baby syndrome, and possible formation of carcinogenic compounds in the digestive tract. Thus, removing them from water sources seems necessary. Biological denitrification is a method used in the treatment of nitrate contaminated water. Numerous biological denitrification processes such as fluidized bed reactors (FBR) have been reported. This bench-scale research describes the operation of granular activated carbon (GAC) based fluidized bed reactors (FBR) for nitrate removal from water. Materials and Methods: The GAC was inoculated with a denitrifing culture isolated from Khorramabad milk industry wastewater. In addition, characteristics of GAC were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). A mixed bacterial culture was acclimated to the removal of 50-200 mg NO3-N. L–1 at 1-3 h retention time from water. The experiments were carried out under anoxic conditions. The effects of various operating conditions such as hydraulic retention time (HRT), Nitrate loading rate and initial concentrations of nitrate on the denitrification were demonstrated experimentally. Results: The experimental results demonstrated that the over 94% of NO3-N was removed in the 2-3 h retention time, almost no NO2-N accumulated in treated water when the concentration of NO3-N was around 50-100 mg/L in influent. Under the experimental conditions, drinking water quality was achieved at a nitrogen loading lower than 2.4 kgNO3-N•m-3•day-1 with an influent COD/N ratio of 3 if ethanol was used as the carbon source. The denitrification rate increased up to a maximal value of 3.45 kgNO3-N•m-3•day-1 with increasing nitrogen loading rate (4.8 kgNO3-N•m-3•day-1). Conclusion: This study demonstrates that GAC offers favorable attachment sites for bacteria on the surfaces of GAC for Nitrate removal and denitrification of water was carried out in a fluidized bed reactor (FBR) using Activated carbon-immobilized cell beads as support carriers.