Wastewater-Derived Dissolved Organic Nitrogen: Analytical Methods, Characterization, and Effects—A Review

Wastewater-derived dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) accounts for up to 80% of dissolved nitrogen in nitrified-denitrified effluent. The sturdiness of DON measurements hindered the characterization of DON, especially in wastewater matrix, leading to an unsatisfying knowledge level. Measurement of DON and DON species is imortant not only as a measure of treatibility of wastewater in treatment plants, but also for the possible algal growth-stimulating effects after their discharge into receiving waters. In addition, wastewater-derived DON compounds may act as precursors to several disinfection by-products during intentional or unintentional reuse of wastewater. A review of DON compounds in wastewater and wastewater effluents is given.

KEY WORDS:

• bioavailability
• Kjeldahl
• NDMA
• proteins

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Dr. Elif Pehlivanoglu-Mantas is grateful to the Higher Education Council of Turkey for the award of a PhD scholarship.

Notes

^a Primary effluent.

^a Untreated wastewater.

^a Effluent-dominated river.

^a The range of the removals obtained during the experiments instead of mean ± SD.

^a Anion exchanger: AG 1-X8 (BioRad). Cation exchanger: AG 50W-X8 (BioRad), 15 g resin/L.

^b Anion exchanger: Dowex 21 K (Dow Chemical). Cation exchanger: AG 50W-X8 (BioRad) with sulfonic acid styrene matrix, 10–15 g resin/L.

^c Anion exchanger: AG 1-X8 (BioRad). Cation exchanger: AG 50W-X8 (BioRad), 25 g resin/L.