Pedrouso Fuentes, AlbaVal del Río, ÁngelesMorales Pereira, NicolásVázquez Padín, José RamónCampos Gómez, José LuisMosquera Corral, Anuska2022-04-052022-08-042020Pedrouso, A., Val del Rio, A., Morales, N., Vazquez-Padin, J. R., Campos, J. L., & Mosquera-Corral, A. (2021). Mainstream anammox reactor performance treating municipal wastewater and batch study of temperature, pH and organic matter concentration cross-effects. Process Safety and Environmental Protection, 145, 195-202. doi:10.1016/j.psep.2020.07.052http://hdl.handle.net/10347/27908The anammox process is an energy efficient promising alternative to biologically remove the nitrogen. Thus, a 5-L anammox granular reactor was inoculated with sludge coming from a sidestream partial nitritation and anammox reactor (>200 mg TN/L and 30 °C) and it was directly subjected to 15 ± 1 °C treating mimicked municipal wastewater (50 mg TN/L). Results indicated that an acclimation period (commonly used) to progressive reach the mainstream conditions is not needed, shortening the start-up periods. The long-term anammox process stability was proved to treat synthetic wastewater with decreasing alkalinities and nitritified primary settled municipal wastewater. The low pH values (6.2 ± 0.1) of the municipal wastewater fed did not affect the process stability. Residual organic matter concentrations augmented the nitrogen removal efficiency from 80 % (with the synthetic medium) to 92 % achieving effluent concentrations below 10 mg TN/L. Finally, the effect of pH (6–8), temperature (15–30 °C) and organic matter concentration (0–75 mg TOC/L) over the specific anammox activity (SAAMX) was evaluated at short-term. pH and temperature and their interactions exerted significant influence on the SAAMX value while the TOC concentrations itself did not significantly change the SAAMXeng© 2020 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.AlkalinityAutotrophic nitrogen removalInorganic carbonMainstreamLow temperatureSpecific anammox activityjournal article10.1016/j.psep.2020.07.0520957-5820open access