SHARON PROCESS
1. Description and working principle
The SHARON (Single reactor for High activity
Ammonia Removal Over Nitrite) process takes
place in a completely mixed reactor without
biomass retention. It has been developed to
treat high strength ammonia side streams from
sludge digestion. The conventional means of
converting ammonia to nitrogen gas is by
utilizing the nitrification/denitrification process.
In the SHARON® process, ammonia is
converted directly to nitrite (as opposed to
nitrate in conventional methods), and then
directly to nitrogen gas (Solley, D. 2000). The
conversion from ammonium to nitrite is
described by the following formula:
NH4
+ + 1.5 O2 ⇒ NO2
- + H2O + 2 H+
(STOWA 2006)