Domestic wastewater in Indonesia: Challenge in the future related to nitrogen content

The option of reusing treated wastewater is becoming necessary for environment sustainability approach. In fact, wastewater effluent discharge regulations have become stricter leading to a better water quality. Municipal activities, agriculture, and rapid urbanization led to increased nitrogen and phosphorus discharge to the water system. More often, the effluents from municipal wastewater treatment plant failed to meet the national standard for effluent quality. Excess nutrients, mostly N and P is the main cause of eutrophication the which results in oxygen depletion, biodiversity reduction, fish kills, odor, and increased toxicity. Biological nutrient removal technologies are preferred and widely used to remove nitrogen and phosphorus from domestic wastewater and protect water quality. Chemical compositions in wastewater are highly diverse substances from simple compounds to complex polymers. Some wastewater samples were analyzed in this research. Conventional technology still retains the basic principle of complete nitrogen cycle through nitrification and denitrification. Anammox is a sustainable and cost-effective alternative to the basic method of nitrogen removal. Anammox has been identified as a new biotechnology for nitrogen reduction from wastewater. Compared to the common process of nitrogen removal, anammox can reduce 64% off aeration, 100% of an exogenous electron donor, and sludge production by 80-90%. Some benefits from anammox include high nitrogen removal rate, lower operational cost, and small space requirements. Anaerobic baffled reactor (ABR) in Indonesia has been used commonly as communal wastewater treatment. Promoting anammox process in ABR potentially become an improvement for ABR in removing nitrogen better. This combination process still outlined for further research.