The effect of substrate concentration fluctuation on the performance of high-rate denitrifying reactor

A high-rate denitrifying process is sensitive to the operation conditions and the substrate concentration fluctuation can lead to the deterioration or even collapse of process performance. The results of this study showed that the effect of substrate concentration fluctuation on the high-rate denitrification process was related to the substrate concentration and shock duration. The effect of substrate concentration was greater than that of shock duration and nitrate conversion was more sensitive than methanol conversion. The response of denitrification performance was related to the loading saturation (maximum loading rate/loading capacity ratio). When the loading saturation was lower than 32%, the high-rate denitrification process could stay in pseudo steady state, otherwise it would easily lose stability. The response of denitrification performance could be divided into three periods. The performance deterioration of high-rate denitrifying process could be attributed to the overload trigger and the toxicity of free nitrous acid.