The amount of produced industrial wastewater, especially the semiconductor and thin-film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD), increases due to an increasing production of these electronic items. The wastewater from those industrial sector contain many chemical such as salts and TMAH which is difficult to treat and suspected as inhibitor in nitrogen removal process. Nowadays, Biological nitrification and denitrification is the most studied process for nitrogen removal from wastewaters.
This study evaluated the effects of salinity on the nitrification and denitrification of ammonia in two (aerobic and anoxic) sequencing batch reactors (SBRs). Aerobic SBR (O-SBR) and anoxic SBR (A-SBR) were tested with three salinity levels (1x, 2x, and 3x conductivity). For A-SBR, isopropyl acetate (IPA) was used as the bacterial carbon source. Nitrite accumulation was observed in the end nitrification process. The biomass level decreased with increasing salt concentration due to the adverse effect of salt on microorganisms. Increased salinity levels of microorganism resulted good nitrification and denitrification rate to treat high salinity containing wastewater.
The nitrification performance of TMAH biodegradation using SBR under aerobic condition was also investigated in study. Results showed that complete nitrification achieved in the end of TMAH biodegradation. Batches were conducted to study the kinetics of nitrification in different TMAH concentrations. Specific ammonia oxidation rate had better result rather than specific nitrification rate with 0.97 mg-NH4/g-VSS hr treating 2500 mg/L TMAH.

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