In our previous studies for ammonia stripping, temperature and
pH were adjusted to 85 C and 10, respectively (Nakashimada et al.,
2008; Abouelenien et al., 2009a). These parameters are costly from
an energy supply point of view, and not suitable for methanogenic
consortia. In the present study, we obtained the same level of efficiency for the removal of ammonia (82%) at fermentation conditions of pH 9–6.7 at 55 C. The same level of ammonia removal
(75–95%) was also achieved by Gangagni Rao et al. (2008), who applied ammonia stripping to poultry leachate containing 1–2% TS with an initial ammonia concentration of 2.25–3 g L1. The level of
ammonia removal was higher than that obtained by Lei et al.
(2007), who applied ammonia stripping for pretreating anaerobic
digestion effluent and obtained 78% ammonia removal at pH 12.