Abstract
The objective of this study was to investigate the treatment efficiency, kinetics, and morphological characteristics of biofilm in upflow $Biobead^{(R)}$ process, a kind of biological aerated filter(BAF). The $Biobead^{(R)}$ system showed high removal rates of $COD_{Mn}$(76~83%), $BOD_5$(67~88%) and SS(71~91%) for food wastewater with high salt concentration ($>4,000mg/{\ell}$) under short reaction times(2~3hrs). Even at aerobic condition, the system had high treatment efficiency for both T-N (51~63%) and T-P(62~81%). The removal kinetics of $COD_{Mn}$, $BOD_5$, T-N, T-P, and $Cl^-$ in the $Biobead^{(R)}$ system showed a plug-flow pattern with reaction rate constants($hr^{-1}$) of 0.58, 0.63, 0,30, 0.48, and 0.38 respectively. A backwashing process to remove excess biomass and filtered solids was needed at least once during 22-hour operation at $0.5kg\;BOD\;m^{-3}{\cdot}d^{-1}$ loading. At the higher loading($1.0kg\;BOD\;m^{-3}{\cdot}d^{-1}$) the backwashing interval was shorten by 8 hours. The COD, BOD, T-N, and T-P were removed from 43 to 66% only by aerobic biodegradation. The SS was removed over 70% by the filtering of $Biobead^{(R)}$ media in the treatment system. The first one of three serial Biobead reactors showed the highest removal values for $COD_{\alpha}$(52.3%), $COD_{Mn}$(38.8%), BOD(62.5%), and T-N(40.0%). The SS and T-P had the highest removal values(47.5% and 29.2%) at the second one of the serial reactors. The biofilm had non-homogeneous spatial distribution and the colonies were embedded in the sunk area of the Biobead. The thickness of the biofilm was very thin ($5.0{\sim}29.4{\mu}m$) compared to the biofilm thickness($200{\sim}300{\mu}m$) used in other BAF systems.