dr inż. Dominika Sobotka | Gdańsk University of Technology

Wastewater serves as a vital resource for sustainable fertilizer production, particularly in the recovery of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). This comprehensive study explores the recovery chain, from technology to final product reuse. Biomass growth is the most cost-effective method, valorizing up to 95 % of nutrients, although facing safety concerns. Various techniques enable the recovery of 100 % P and up to 99 % N, but challenges...

The implementation of anaerobic ammonia removal has potential for reducing the operating costs in wastewater treatment plants. However, the application of this process in mainstream treatment presents various challenges, particularly due to the sensitivity of anammox bacteria to low temperatures. To address these challenges, changes in the bacterial community were investigated under decreasing temperatures (from 30 to 12 °C) within...

Global food security, which has emerged as one of the sustainability challenges, impacts every country. As food cannot be generated without involving nutrients, research has intensified recently to recover unused nutrients from waste streams. As a finite resource, phosphorus (P) is largely wasted. This work critically reviews the technical applicability of various water technologies to recover macro-nutrients such as P, N, and...

The second step of nitrification can be mediated by nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB), i.e. Nitrospira and Nitrobacter, with different characteristics in terms of the r/K theory. In this study, an activated sludge model was developed to account for competition between two groups of canonical NOB and comammox bacteria. Heterotrophic denitrification on soluble microbial products was also incorporated into the model. Four 5-week washout...

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a key parameter for evaluating the greenhouse gas emissions from wastewater treatment plants. In this study, a new method for predicting liquid N2O production during nitrification was developed based on a mechanistic model and machine learning (ML) algorithm. The mechanistic model was first used for simulation of two 15-day experimental trials in a nitrifying sequencing batch reactor. Then, model predictions...