The activity of anaerobic ammonium oxidation (ANAMMOX) immobilized in synthetic media (Poly Ethylene Glycol, PEG) and granular form was evaluated comparatively to investigate the effect of influent nitrogen concentration and exposure of oxygen. In ANAMMOX granule reactor, when concentration of influent total nitrogen increased to 500mg/L, removal efficiency of ammonium, nitrite and nitrate were shown to 90.5±6.5, 96.6±4.9, and 93.2±6.1%, respectively. In the case of the PEG gel, it showed lower nitrogen removal performance, resulting in that the removal efficiency of ammonium, nitrite and nitrate were shown to 83.3±13.0, 96.4±6.1, and 90.3±7.5%, respectively. In second step, when exposed to oxygen, the nitrogen removal performance in the ANAMMOX granule reactor also remained stable, but the activity of PEG gel ANAMMOX was found to be inhibited. Consequently, the PEG gel ANAMMOX was a higher sensitivity than that of granular ANAMMOX with two variables applied in this study.

Immobilization of anaerobic ammonium oxidizing bacteria has been studied to enhance the biomass retention of the slowly growing bacteria and the process stability. The purpose of this study was to compare the nitrogen removal efficiency of granular and immobilized anammox bacteria with poly vinyl alcohol and alginate. The specific anammox activity of the granular, homoginized and immobilized anammox bacteria were 0.016±0.0002 gN/gVSS/d, 0.011±0.001 gN/gVSS/d and 0.007±0.0005 gN/gVSS/d, respectively. Although the activity decreased to 43.7 % of the original one due to low pH and O2 exposure during the homogination and the immobilization, it was rapidly recovered within 7 days in the following continuous culture. When synthetic T-N concentrations of 100, 200, 400, 800 mg/L were fed, the immobilized anammox bacteria showed higher nitrogen removal efficiencies at all operational conditions than those of granular anammox bacteria. When the sludge retention time was shorten below 30.7 days and the reject water was fed, the nitrite removal efficiency of the granular anammox bacteria dropped to 8 % of the initial value, while that of the immobilized anammox bacteria was maintained over 95 % of the initial one. The immobilization with poly vinyl alcohol and alginate would be a feasible method to improve the performance and stability of the anammox process.