Short- and long-term orange dye effects on ammonium oxidizing and anammox bacteria activities

The effects of orange azo dye over ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and anammox bacteria activities were tested. Performed batch tests indicated that concentrations lower than 650 mg_orange/L stimulated AOB activity, while anammox bacteria activity was inhibited at concentrations higher than 25 mg_orange/L. Long-term performance of a continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) for the partial nitritation and a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) for the anammox process was tested in the presence of 50 mg_orange/L. In the case of the partial nitritation process, both the biomass concentration and the specific AOB activity increased after 50 days of orange azo dye addition. Regarding the anammox process, specific activity decreased down to 58% after 12 days of operation with continuous feeding of 50 mg_orange/L. However, the anammox activity was completely recovered only 54 days after stopping the dye addition in the feeding. Once the biomass was saturated the azo dye adsorption onto the biomass was insignificant in the CSTR for the partial nitritation process fed with 50 mg_orange/L. However, in the SBR the absorption was determined as 6.4 mg_orange/g volatile suspended solids. No biological decolorization was observed in both processes.