Comparative study of the use of pure oxygen and air in the nitrification of a MBR system used for wastewater treatment

► Behavior of the biological system in different MLSS, HRT and temperature. ► Kinetic coefficients have been changed with different MLSS and HRT in MBR system. ► Kinetic coefficients have been changed when oxygen or air were used. ► The nitrogen removal was improved when oxygen was used instead of air. A MBR (membrane bioreactor) was performed to quantify the improvement in nitrogen removal terms when pure oxygen and air were used to supply the aerobic conditions at different HRT (hydraulic retention time) and mixed liquid suspended solids concentrations. The improvement in the efficiency was 8.0% and 13.5% when pure oxygen was used with 12h and 18h of HRT repectively. The ammonium utilization rates with HRT of 18h with pure oxygen was 1.23mgNt/(L h) and with air 0.66mgNt/(L h) and with HRT of 12h was 1.14mgNt/(L h) and 1.18mgNt/(L h) respectively. Model simulation (DESSAS software) confirmed the validity for nitrogen removal, hydrolysis constant was increased (106% and 184%), decay constant was decreased and Monod’s constant was increased (190.4% to 324.1%), and a multivariate analysis with CANOCO v4.5 demonstrated that temperature and HRT have the higher influence in kinetics.