REMOÇÃO BIOLÓGICA DE NITROGÊNIO EM ÁGUAS RESIDUÁRIAS ATRAVÉS DE REATOR ANAERÓBIO

Abstract

The environmental conditions in Brazil have been contributing to the development of anaerobic systems in the treatment of wastewaters, especially UASB reactors Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket. In the anaerobic digestion, the organic nitrogen is reduced, to ammonium form, which is not degraded in those conditions. The method more used for nitrogen removal is the biological treatment by nitrification and denitrification. The nitrification is an aerobic process, accomplished by autotrophic bacteria that promote the oxidation of ammonia to nitrite and nitrate. The second stage of the treatment, named denitrification, is a process in which anaerobic bacteria reduce nitrite and nitrate to molecular nitrogen. The classic biological process, for removal of nutrients, use three reactors - Bardenpho System, therefore, this work intends an alternative system, where the anaerobic digestion and the denitrification happen in the same reactor, in this system, is reduced for two, the number of reactors. This work had as objective evaluates the performance of the UASB reactor, in terms of removal efficiency, of bath COD and nitrogen. It was verified that the anaerobic digestion process was not affected, the removal efficiency of organic material expressed in COD, in all the phases, was 71%, removal already expected for a reactor of this type. It was also observed that the denitrification process happened, the removal nitrate efficiencies were, in the first phase, 90% and in the following ones, 50%. Therefore, the denitrification process in reactor UASB is viable.