Investigation of organic nitrogen and carbon removal in the aerobic digestion of various sludges

Nitrification and carbon removal are investigated in aerobicbatch digestion of various sludges. The experiments arecarried out with activated sludge (Test 1) and with amixture of activated and primary settling sludge (Test2). The nitrification rate was monitored, measuring theNO₂^- concentration. At the 3rd day of thedigestion 40.7 mg_NO2-N/l and 3.89 mg_NO2-N/l werefound in Tests 1 and 2 respectively. In a digestion process,the degradation of biomass indicates the beginning of theendogenous phase. Our measure for biomass content of thesludge was protein analysis. In Test 1, the first day valuesof 50.93 mg_TOC/ g_{dry matter}/day and 138.53mg_protein-C/g_{dry matter}/day for specific TOC andprotein-C removal rates showed, that the digestion processbegan in the endogenous phase. For Test 2, since theendogenous phase began after removal of raw organic matter inprimary settling sludge, specific TOC and protein-C removalrates were observed to be 60.12 mg_TOC/g_{dry matter}/dayand 26.72 mg_protein-C/g_{dry matter}/day,respectively.