Suspended sludge and biofilm samples in the anammox packed-bed biofilm reactor Raw sequence reads

Anammox is an efficient and carbon-saving process for biological nitrogen removal; however, the long start-up period and poor stability of anammox bioreactors hinder their application in wastewater treatment. An innovative technical strategy was developed in this study that used a packed-bed biofilm reactor (PBBR) to grow healthy anammox biofilms for the fast start-up of bioreactors. With a greatly reduced fluid turbulence in the PBBR, the attachment and growth of anammox biofilms were found to be accelerated and the specific anammox biofilm formation rate was 60% higher than that in the conventional moving-bed biofilm reactor (0.032 vs. 0.020/d). With the rapid anammox biofilm formation and growth, the nitrogen removal capacity of the PBBR increased by 10 times in 2 months.