New method for minimizing abating nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas

Science Daily: The cost of treating wastewater contaminated with nitrogen could be lowered in future. Soil scientists at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) have developed a new mathematical model which can help determine the optimum conditions for microbiological water treatment.

Using the stable natural nitrogen isotope 15N, this mathematical model, which is the most accurate to date, can for the first time calculate exactly the quantities of dinitrogen (N2) produced by the complex biochemical treatment processes anammox and denitrification and the background levels in the atmosphere, according to the researchers writing in the specialist journal Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry. This means that in future the effectiveness of such wastewater treatment plants can be significantly improved and emissions of the greenhouse gas N2O (a by-product of denitrification) can be avoided…

One of the key concerns of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD), which came into force in 2000, is the reduction of nitrogen-containing nutrients in waterbodies. One approach is to avoid or optimise the use of nitrogen fertilizers in agriculture. Another approach is to improve wastewater treatment technologies….

Drainage of nitrates in the north of France, photo by F. Lamiot, Wikimedia Commons