抄録
Research was conducted to probe for useful applications of less commonly considered nitrogen bio-transformation processes including anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) using continuous flow treatment with a non-woven biomass carrier for enrichment of slowly growing organisms. Reactors were seeded with sludge from an industrial denitrification unit process. Following seven weeks of operation under autotrophic anoxic conditions, disappearances of ammonium and nitrite with production of low levels of nitrate were evidenced at stoichiometric ratios approximating that of the anammox reaction documented at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. In subsequent loading rate studies, ammonium and total-nitrogen removal rates of 8.7 and 18.8 mg N l-1h-1, respectively, were achieved (hydraulic retention time, 9 h) . Furthermore a distinctly red biomass growth developed which is characteristic of the responsible microorganism (s) . The sequence of a 16S rDNA clone obtained from the red biomass matched that previously reported for the planctomycete firstly identified responsible for the reaction with a similarity score of 0.928 (99.1% sequence similarity) . To our knowledge, this constitutes the first substantiated confirmation of the biological anammox reaction outside of Europe.
