%0 Journal Article %A Tourang, Masoud %A Aminzadeh, Behnoush %A Torabian, Ali %T Autotrophic denitrification of synthetic nitrate-contaminated groundwater in up-flow fixed-bed bioreactor by pumice as porous media %J Environmental Health Engineering and Management Journal %V 5 %N 1 %U http://ehemj.com/article-1-311-en.html %R 10.15171/EHEM.2018.01 %D 2018 %K Autotrophic Denitrification, Pumice, Nitrate, Nitrite, Thiosulfate, %X Background: Increasing nitrate concentrations in groundwater resources is considered a common environmental and public health problem worldwide. In this research, an autotrophic up-flow bioreactor with pumice as media was used to study the effects of the sulfur-to-nitrogen (S/N) ratio and empty bed contact time (EBCT) on nitrate removal efficiency and byproducts. Methods: Experiments were carried out in a 3.47 L up-flow, fixed-bed reactor with 3 sampling ports. To evaluate the overall impact of S/N ratio and EBCT on the performance of the bioreactor, several phases with different S/N ratios and EBCTs were applied. Results: At a constant S/N ratio of 3.85 g/g, as EBCT decreased from 24 hours to 2 hours, the nitrate removal efficiency decreased from 98% to 64%. On the other hand, at the desired EBCT of 4 hr, as S/N ratio decreased from 3.85 to 1.51 g/g, nitrate removal efficiency was reduced from 85% to 32%. Changing the EBCT and S/N ratio also affected the effluent nitrite and sulfate concentrations as byproducts. At the S/N ratio of 3.85 g/g and EBCT of 24 hours, effluent nitrite and sulfate concentrations were 0.1 mg NO2--N/L and 463 mg SO4 2-/L, respectively. Decreasing the S/N ratio to 1.51 g/g and the EBCT to 4 hours caused drastic changes in effluent nitrite and sulfate concentrations. Conclusion: The results indicated that the autotrophic denitrification with thiosulfate as electron donor and pumice as media was feasible and applicable for nitrate contaminated groundwater. %> http://ehemj.com/article-1-311-en.pdf %P 1-7 %& 1 %! %9 Original Article %L A-10-1-100 %+ Department of Environmental Engineering, Graduate Faculty of Environment, University of Tehran, Iran %G eng %@ 2423-3765 %[ 2018