Abstract:Heterotrophic nitrification bacteria are able to utilize organic carbon sources to grow and produce hydroxylamine, nitrite and nitrate from nitrogen compounds, and most of them can also denitrify these products to gaseous nitrogen compounds simultaneously. Therefore, more and more attentions are paid to heterotrophic nitrification bacteria for wastewater treatment. This paper reviews the denitrification characteristics of some isolated heterotrophic nitrification bacteria, and analyzes the influence of various conditions to the heterotrophic nitrification bacteria, such as temperature, pH, DO, carbon sources, C/N, and inhibitors, etc. At last, the present situation and potential applications of wastewater treatment by heterotrophic nitrification bacteria are introduced.