Estimation of nitrite concentration in the biological nitritation process using enzymatic inhibition kinetics

Recently, interests to remove nitrogen in the nitritation process have increased because of its economical advantages, since it could be a short-cut process to save both oxygen for nitrification and carbon for denitrification compared to a typical nitrification. However, the kinetics related with the nitritation process has not yet been fully understood. Furthermore, many useful models which have been successfully used for wastewater treatment processes cannot be used to estimate effluent nitrite concentration for evaluating performance of the nitritation process, since the process rate equations and population of microorganisms for nitrogen removal in these models have been set up only for the condition of full nitrification. Therefore, the present study was conducted to estimate an effluent nitrite concentration in the nitritation process with a concept of enzymatic inhibition kinetics based on long-term laboratory experiments. Using a nonlinear least squares regression method, kinetic parameters were accurately determined. By setting up a process rate equation along with a mass balance equation of the nitrite-oxidizing step, an effluent nitrite concentration in the nitritation process was then successfully estimated.