Abstract: The present invention relates to a process at the purification of water, in particular sewage water, comprising a nitrification process and a denitrification process during simultaneous decomposition of a pre-precipitated sludge of sewage water. The invention is characterized in that decomposed sludge or solutions of sludge of a chemical pre-precipitation of sewage water is added as a source of carbon at the denitrification step.

Abstract: A water purifying method, particularly a sewage purification method, for eliminating nitrogen therefrom, in which (a) the water is subjected to a preprecipitation process with the aid of trivalent and/or multivalent metal salts for prereduction of incoming contaminants; (b) the NO.sub.3 present is reduced to nitrogen gas by anaerobic fermentation, in which readily decomposed organic material serves as the carbon source and gives by preprecipitation according to (a) an optimum nitrogen reduction in respect of each sewage category; (c) the ingoing ammonium nitrogen is oxidized to nitrate by aerobic fermentation while simultaneously blowing-off nitrogen-gas bound to the water, wherein water (sewage) that contains nitrate is passed to the reduction stage (b) and bacteria-containing sludge is passed from the aerobic stage to the anaerobic stage, and wherein process stages (b) and (c) can be carried out in any desired order subsequent to step (a).