Coupling autotrophic denitrification with partial nitritation-anammox (PNA) for efficient total inorganic nitrogen removal

The performance of and the microbial ecology in an integrated lab scale set up comprising of a PN/A bioreactor and an elemental sulfur-supported packed bed autotrophic denitrification (ESSAD) are reported. The PN/A reactor exhibited an average removal rate of 0.56 ± 0.103 kg N m−3 d−1, whereas the ESSAD reactor removed an average of 0.0018 kg NO3−-N m−3 d−1. The combined average removal rate was 0.6 kg N m−3 d−1, yielding an overall total inorganic nitrogen efficiency of 97%. Based on 16S rRNA gene clone libraries from the ESSAD reactor, the extracted Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) formed a clade with Thiobacillus denitrificans sp. indicating a common ancestral relationship. High throughput amplicon sequencing targeting V3 region of 16S rRNA gene for the biofilm in the ESSAD also revealed an abundance of the Thiobacillus genus. Additionally, 16s rRNA amplicon sequencing of the genomic DNA from the PN/A reactor reflected a dominance of the Planctomycetes phylum.