Biological Nitrogen and Sulfur Removal in Wastewater Treatment Systems
This community investigates the biological mechanisms and engineering designs used to remove nitrogen and sulfur compounds from wastewater, primarily through microbial processes like denitrification and anammox.
The research focuses on optimizing biological reactors, including activated sludge, granular sludge, and constructed wetlands, to treat municipal wastewater and landfill leachate. Key methods involve autotrophic and heterotrophic denitrification, partial nitrification, and the anammox process, often utilizing sulfur or iron as electron donors to reduce organic carbon requirements. A significant portion of the work examines the role of microbial communities, biofilms, and extracellular polymeric substances in these systems, with a specific emphasis on mitigating nitrous oxide emissions and enhancing the simultaneous removal of nitrogen and phosphorus.
The largest share of this research is found in nitrogen studies, accounting for 2.0% of all tracked nitrogen research, with 11,295 papers in this community. Sulfur research follows, representing 1.5% of sulfur studies with 4,509 papers, while phosphorus research comprises 0.9% of that element's output with 2,966 papers.
The community comprises 21,041 papers, published most frequently in Bioresource Technology, the Journal of Water Process Engineering, and Water Research.
Recent work continues to explore scalable anammox processes, the integration of sulfur-driven denitrification with anammox in single-stage bioreactors, and the impact of emerging stressors like microplastics and nanoparticles on granular sludge systems.