Effect of Nutrients on Biological Nitrification

Biological nitrification is the most commonly used process for nitrogen removal from wastewater. Nitrification is carried out in two steps. First ammonia is converted to nitrite by ammonia oxidizing bacteria. In the second step nitrite oxidizing bacteria convert nitrite to nitrate. The study involves the effect of nutrients (both organic and inorganic components) on biological nitrification and the optimum concentrations of di-sodium hydrogen phosphate, potassium di-hydrogen phosphate, sodium hydrogen phosphate, sucrose and ferric chloride were observed over ammonium ion removal. The effect of dissolved oxygen also was studied and maximum percentage removal of ammonium ion was found to be 89.2%.