Contributions of biofilm and suspended sludge to nitrogen transformation andnitrous oxide emission in hybrid sequencing batch system

Hybrid system combines the nature of suspended growth and attached growth has been widely applied to wastewater treatment.In this research, the contributions to N transformation and N2O emission by biofilm and suspended sludge in the hybrid sequencingbatchreactor for a simultaneous nitrification, denitrification and phosphorus removal process were investigated. For the hybrid system,nitrification occurred mostly in the suspended sludge, while the biofilm played the major role in denitrification. The interaction ofthe biofilm and the suspended sludge in the same reactor resulted in a better overall nitrogen removal performance with simultaneousnitrification and denitrification. However, N2O emission was the main end product of nitrogen removal for the hybrid system; whileit was N2 for the biofilm. The relative low N2O emissions from the pure biofilm and the pure suspended sludge corresponded to therelatively high nitrate at the end of the aeration period compared with the hybrid system.