The Short-term Effects of Temperature and Free Ammonia on Ammonium Oxidization in Granular and Floccular Nitrifying System

The short-term effects of temperature and free ammonia (FA) on ammonium oxidization were investigated in this study by operating several batch tests with two different partial nitrification aggregates, formed as either granules or flocs. The results showed that the rate of ammonium oxidation in both cultures increased significantly as temperature increased from 10 to 30 °C. The specific ammonium oxidation rate with the granules was 2–3 times higher than that with flocs at the same temperature. Nitrification at various FA concentrations and temperatures combination exhibited obvious inhibition in ammonium oxidation rate when FA was 90 mg·L−1 and temperature dropped to 10 °C in the two systems. However, the increase in substrate oxidation rate of ammonia at 30 °C was observed. The results suggested that higher reaction temperature was helpful to reduce the toxicity of FA. Granules appeared to be more tolerant to FA attributed to the much fraction of ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and higher resistance to the transfer of ammonia into the bacterial aggregates, whereas in the floc system, the bacteria distributed throughout the entire aggregate. These results may contribute to the applicability of the nitrifying granules in wastewater treatment operated at high ammonium concentration.