Impact of substrates acclimation strategy on simultaneous biodegradation of hydrogen sulfide and ammonia

Three columns were differentiated with feeding mixture of H2S and NH3 (MFC), feeding NH3 followed by H2S (NFC), and feeding H2S followed by NH3 (SFC). Removal performance, biodegradation capacity and microbial community structures in the three columns were compared. The results show that NFC has a shorter acclimation period for the removal of NH3 gas and nitrification than MFC. Under the high loading of H2S and NH3 at 164 and 82 g m−3 h−1, respectively, NFC exhibited high removal efficiency of NH3 (>95%) while the removal efficiencies were obtained at 63 and 75% in MFC and SFC, respectively. The removal of NH3 gas in NFC was significantly attributed to nitrification (over 50%), while adsorption and chemical reaction contributed to the removal of NH3 in MFC and SFC. The different biodegradation capacities of NH3 could be due to the dissimilarity in the microbial population presented in each column.