In anaerobic ammonia oxidation (anammox) process, distance clad of Planctomycetes bacteria oxidize ammonia using nitrite as an electron acceptor under anaerobic condition. Combined nitritation-anammox has been confirmed as an attractive option for nitrogen removal in high-strength wastewater due to low cost and robustness. In this project, we have started-up a 265 L pilot-scale anammox plant for the City of Lawrence, Kansas. This industrial funded demonstration plant give us the opportunity to bring the state of art anammox process to the field. We have been engaged from successfully operating the process for treating side-stream wastewater to investigating the microbial community structure dynamics over a period of time. We’ll combine next-generation sequencing with other molecular techniques to understand the mechanisms of anammox metabolism in the pilot-scale plant.

Research Team