Simultaneous removal of aniline, nitrogen and phosphorus in aniline-containing wastewater treatment by using sequencing batch reactor

The high removal efficiencies of traditional biological aniline-degrading systems always lead to accumulation of ammonium. In this study, simultaneous removal of aniline, nitrogen and phosphorus in a single sequencing batch reactor was achieved by using anaerobic/aerobic/anoxic (A/O/A) operational process. The removal efficiencies of COD, NH4+-N, TN, TP were over 95.80%, 83.03%, 87.13%, 90.95%, respectively in most cases with 250 mg L−1 of initial aniline at 6 h cycle when DO was 5.5 ± 0.5 mg L−1. Aniline was able to be completely degraded when initial concentrations were less than 750 mg L−1. When DO increased, the removal rate of NH4+-N and TP slightly increased along with the moderate decrease of removal efficiencies of TN. The variation of HRT had obvious influence on removal performance of pollutants. The system showed high removal efficiencies of aniline, COD and nutrients during the variation of operating conditions, which might contribute to disposal of aniline-rich industrial wastewater.