Nitrification in Water- A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

Nitrification in water was performed in two sets of reactors. Each reactor consisted of two columns connected in series. One set of reactor was packed with burnt red soil balls as the media for growth of the microorganisms, while the other set was kept empty. The water with average ammonia concentration of 70 mg/l was maintained in both the reactors. Ammonia concentration was measured at inlet, intermediate point and outlet. The flow rate was kept at 6 m/day during seeding for acclimatization of nitrifying bacteria and was increased gradually. The filtration rate varied from 60 to 80 m/day. The result demonstrated that ammonia removal efficiency in the reactor packed with burnt red soil balls was found to be 88.3% in comparison to 13.6 % in the reactor without media. It is thus concluded that burnt red soil balls have high potentiality as a media in nitrification of water. The design parameters have been developed for optimum sizing of the biofilter.