High Rates of Ammonia Removal in Experimental Oxygen-Activated Nitrification Wetland Mesocosms
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Volume 135, Issue 10
Abstract
While constructed treatment wetlands are very efficient at polishing nitrate from secondary effluent, they are much less effective at removing ammonia. A key factor that limits ammonia oxidation via biological nitrification in vegetated wetlands is low levels of dissolved oxygen. This study evaluated the effectiveness of side-stream oxygenation to enhance ammonia removal in replicate surface-flow experimental mesocosms containing wetland sediment and plants (Typha spp.). Mesocosms had a water volume of 29.5 L, a hydraulic retention time of 5 days, and a hydraulic loading rate of 4.3 cm/d, and were loaded with synthetic secondary effluent contain 10 mg-N/L of ammonia. Relative to nonoxygenated controls, oxygenation increased ammonia removal rates by an order of magnitude. Areal removal rates increased from to , concentration removal efficiency increased from 10 to 95%, and area-based first-order removal rates increased from to 50–75 m/year. Ammonia removal rates in oxygenated mesocosms were 2- to 4-fold higher than rates reported for full-scale constructed wetlands treating secondary effluent. Results show that oxygen-activated nitrification wetlands, a hybrid of conventional oxygenation technology and wetland ecotechnology, hold promise in economically enhancing rates of ammonia removal and shrinking the wetland area needed to polish ammonia-dominated secondary effluent. Further study is needed to confirm that oxygenation can promote high rates of ammonia removal at the field scale.
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Acknowledgments
This project was funded in part by the Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, through the State of Washington Water Research Center, Grant No. UNSPECIFIED06HQGR0126. The writers thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on the manuscript. The writers also thank the staff of the Palouse Clearwater Environmental Institute for facilitating plant and sediment collection at their field wetland site in Moscow, Idaho.UNSPECIFIED
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Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 135 • Issue 10 • October 2009
Pages: 972 - 979
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: Oct 2, 2008
Accepted: Jan 24, 2009
Published online: Apr 3, 2009
Published in print: Oct 2009
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