Dr Yongqiang Liu
Applications accepted all year round
About the Project
Nutrients such as nitrogen or phosphorus are notorious for causing eutrophication and deteriorating water quality. Based on European Union Urban wastewater treatment directive 91/271/EEC, the total nitrogen discharge from urban wastewater plants to nutrient sensitive areas should be lower than 10-15ppm. An increasingly more stringent requirement for nitrogen discharge from sewage treatment plants is also implemented in other places of the world. Although conventional nitrification/denitrification technology has been adopted widely to meet the nitrogen discharge requirement, high energy consumption and requirement of external carbon source make this conventional technology costly. Ammonium removal with nitrite as electron acceptor by autotrophic Anammox bacteria under strictly anoxic condition is an emerging technology, which offers an environmentally sustainable and cost-effective alternative towards energy neutrality for wastewater treatment by combining with other technologies. At the moment, nitrogen removal from nitrogen-rich wastewater using Anammox bacteria has been demonstrated and applied in the practice. However, the sewage wastewater treatment via anammox pathway is still challenging. The objectives of this PhD study are to develop strategies to overcome the technical constraints in terms of efficiency and stability of Anammox cultures and to deepen the understanding of Anammox process for its real application to domestic wastewater treatment. The results obtained from this project can be used to deepen the understanding of nitrogen removal with Anammox bacteria at harsh conditions such as low nitrogen concentration, low temperature or competition from heterotrophic bacteria, improve the nitrogen removal process performance and stability, and guide nitrogen removal process for domestic wastewater.
If you wish to discuss any details of the project informally, please contact Yongqiang Liu , Water and Environmental Engineering research group, Email: [Email Address Removed], Tel: +44 (0) 2380 59 2843.
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