Reduction of nitrous oxide emissions from partial nitrification process by using innovative carbon source (mannitol)

Abstract The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of mannitol as carbon source on nitrogen removal and nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emission during partial nitrification (PN) process. Laboratory-scale PN sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) were operated with mannitol and sodium acetate as carbon sources, respectively. Results showed that mannitol could remarkably reduce N 2 O-N emission by 41.03%, without influencing the removal efficiency of NH 4 + -N. However, it has a significant influence on nitrite accumulation ratio (NAR) and TN removal, which were 19.97% and 13.59% lower than that in PN with sodium acetate, respectively. Microbial analysis showed that the introduction of mannitol could increase the abundance of bacteria encoding nosZ genes. In addition, anti-oxidant enzymes (T-SOD, POD and CAT) activities were significantly reduced and the dehydrogenase activity had an obvious increase in mannitol system, indicating that mannitol could alleviate the inhibition of N 2 O reductase (N 2 OR) activities caused by high NO 2 − -N concentration.