Abstract

Wastewater containing high nitrogen compounds in the form of ammonia (NH4-N), nitrite (NO2-N), nitrate (NO3-N) and organic bound nitrogen (N) could be harmful to aquatic life, causes depletion of dissolved oxygen and eutrophication in receiving water bodies, and additionally influences the sustainability of wastewater for reuse. Biological nitrogen removal technologies are generally used to expel nitrogen from wastewater, and secure natural water quality. A sequential batch reactor was designed capable of removing nitrogen from wastewater through predenitrification method. The study evaluated the important pre-denitrification design parameters as a function of anoxic sludge age. The wastewater is of poultry meat processing from a company called Taravis, located at Sárvár in Hungary. Samples were collected twice on different dates and the characteristics of the wastewater were measured and one of the measurement was doubled and termed theoretical maximum. The daily influent wastewater is 1000 m 3 /day, three reactors are proposed to be used with a total cycle time of 12 hours and an anoxic sludge age of 13 days. Each reactor was sized as having a depth of 6.5 meters, 9.5 meters width and 9.5 meters length and a tank volume of 556 m 3 . The nitrification capacities, NOX’s were evaluated as 144 mg N/l, 68 mg N/l and 287 mg N/l for the first, second and theoretical maximum respectively while the denitrification potentials, NDP’s were evaluated as 85 mg N/l, 79 mg N/l and 184 mg N/l for the first, second and theoretical maximum respectively. The result shows that the effluent to be discharge is within the acceptable Hungarian limit.