Integrated electrochemical-biological process as an alternative mean for ammonia monitoring during anaerobic digestion of organic wastes

Ammonia monitoring is important to control anaerobic digestion (AD) process due to inhibition effect. Here, an electrolysis cell (EC) was integrated with a complete nitrification reactor as an alternative approach for online monitoring of ammonia during AD processes. The AD effluent was pumped into nitrification reactor to convert ammonia to nitrate, followed by the introduction of nitrate-rich effluent to EC cathode.

It was first evaluated with synthetic ammonia-rich digesters and was observed that the current at 5 min were linearly corresponding to the ammonia levels (from 0 to 7.5 mM NH4+-N, R2 = 0.9673). The linear relationship was always observed regardless of different wastewater pH and external voltage. Pre-removal of other electron acceptors from digestate at cathode could eliminate their disturbances to sensor performance.

Finally, the accuracy of biosensor was verified with real digestate test. The simple and reliable biosensor showed great promising for online ammonia monitoring of AD processes.