Inhibition factors and Kinetic model for ammonium inhibition on the anammox process of the SNAD biofilm

The aim of the present work was to evaluate the anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) activity of simultaneous partial nitrification, anammox and denitrification (SNAD) biofilm with different substrate concentrations and pH values. Kaldnes rings taken from the SNAD biofilm reactor were incubated in batch tests to determine the anammox activity. Haldane model was applied to investigate the ammonium inhibition on anammox process. As for nitrite inhibition, the NH₄⁺-N removal rate of anammox process remained 87.4% of the maximum rate with the NO₂⁻-N concentration of 100 mg/L. Based on the results of Haldane model, no obvious difference in kinetic coefficients was observed under high or low free ammonia (FA) conditions, indicating that ammonium rather than FA was the true inhibitor for anammox process of SNAD biofilm. With the pH value of 7.0, the r_max, Ks and K_I of ammonium were 0.209 kg NO₂⁻-N/kg VSS/day, 9.5 mg/L and 422 mg/L, respectively. The suitable pH ranges for anammox process were 5.0 to 9.0. These results indicate that the SNAD biofilm performs excellent tolerance to adverse conditions.