Over the past decade Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display (TFT-LCD) has become a rapidly growing optic-electronic industry. Manufacturing plants of TFT-LCD produce large amounts of high concentration industrial wastewater. In addition to organic carbon, such as dimethyl sulphoxide (DMSO, (CH3)2SO), TFT-LCD wastewater also contains significant amounts of organic nitrogen in the form of mono-ethanolamine (MEA, C2H5ONH2), and tetra-methyl ammonium hydroxide (TMAH, (CH3)4NOH). These organic nitrogen compounds make up 95% of the total nitrogen making it very difficult to meet water quality standards. This ratio is a significant difference from that of agricultural and municipal wastewater which averages a ratio of 80%. (Chen T.K. et al, 2003) This thesis studies the effects of Ammonia Oxidizing Bacteria (AOB) in the degradation of organic nitrogen compounds. Studies are done in both an Aerobic and an Annoxic/Oxic (AO) setting to compare the results of the AOB denitrification in two different sequencing batch reactors (SBR). The AOB activity will be monitored by measuring the water quality changes, as well as by using Molecular Methods such as Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), and Terminal Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (T-RFLP) to identify any changes in microbial communities throughout the treatment process. Experimental data show that a community of Nitrosomonas europaea seems to be the dominant AOB species contributing to the denitrification of the organic nitrogen in the industrial wastewater. Samples from the AO reactor are difficult to analyze, however communities of Ammonia Oxidizing Archaea (AOA) have been found by analyzing the PCR results that were conducted using AOA primers. Denitrification in both environments is apparent suggesting that the biological treatment of high concentration industrial wastewater containing DMSO, MEA, and TMAH is possible.

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