• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
• /
• v.13 no.2
• /
• pp.55-65
• /
• 1999

AF(anaerobic filter)/BAF(biological aerated filter) system and UASB(upflow anaerobic sludge blanket)/BAF system, of which system effluents were recirculated to the anaerobic reactors in each system, were operated in order to investigate the performance in simultaneous removal of organics and nitrogen in high-strength dairy wastewater. Advanced anaerobic treatment processes of AF and UASB were evaluated on applicability as pre-denitrification reactors, and BAF was also evaluated on the performance in oxidizing the remaining organics and ammonia nitrogen. At system HRTs of 4.0 to 4.5 days and recirculation ratios of one to three, the AF/BAF system could achieve more than 99% of organics removals and 64 to 78% of total nitrogen removals depending upon the recirculation ratio. Although the UASB/BAF system also showed more than 99% of organics removals, total nitrogen removals in the UASB/BAF system were 53 to 66% which are lower than those in the AF/BAF system at the corresponding recirculation ratios. Optimum recirculation ratios considering simultaneous removal of organics and nitrogen and cost-effectiveness, were in the range of two to three. The upflow AF packed with crossflow module media, as a primary treatment of the anaerobic reactor/BAF system, showed better performances in denitrification, SS removals, and gas production than the UASB. Higher loading rate of suspended solids from the UASB increased the backwashing times in the following BAF. Especially, at a recirculation ratio of three in the UASB/BAF system, the increase in head loss due to clogging in the BAF caused frequent backwashing, at least once d day. The BAF showed the high nitrification efficiency of average 99.2% and organics removals more than 90% at organics loading rate less than $1.4KgCOD/m^3/d$ and $COD/NH_3-N$ ratio less than 6.4. It was proved that the simplified anaerobic reactor/BAF system could maximize the organics removal and achieve high nitrogen removal efficiencies through recirculation of system effluents to the anaerobic reactor. The AF/BAF system can, especially, be a cost effective and competitive alternative for the simultaneous removal of organics ana nitrogen from wastewaters.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
• /
• v.17 no.3
• /
• pp.41-45
• /
• 2014

The biological aerated filter (BAF) reactor is regarded as an effective biological wastewater treatment method. It can remove pollutants by carrier filtration and biodegradation. Due to its advantages, which include high biomass retention, tolerance to toxicity, excellent removal efficiency, and slurry separation, BAF has been widely used to remove COD, $NH_4{^+}-N$, phosphorus, and other harmful organic substances. In this study, the BAF reactor was used to remove organic contaminants of domestic wastewater of Korea at both the benchand pilot-scale. The main objectives of this study are to: (i) investigate the removal efficiency of organic contaminants (ex. COD, nitrate, phosphorus) in BAF reactors at both scales; (ii) characterize the small-scale wastewater treatment plant using the BAF reactor. The concentration of COD in the influent increased from 69 to 246 mg/L. During the operation period, the final effluent concentration of COD remained maximum 4.0 mg/L, and the average removal efficiency was above 88%. The present study investigated the removal efficiencies of COD, TN, TP and $NH_4{^+}-N$ from smelting wastewater by BAF system. When treating wastewater in both bench and pilot-scale reactors, the BAF worked well.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
• /
• v.28 no.6
• /
• pp.677-686
• /
• 2006

This study was the effectiveness of two downflow BAF(Biological Aerated Filter) systems at conventional water treatment system. A BAF reactor placed in front of coagulation and sedimentation tanks(Mode A) and after coagulation and sedimentation tanks(Mode B) that were compared in terms of removal of suspended particles, organic matters, and ammonia nitrogen. The suspended particles removal efficiency was over 80% for both Mode A and B, although Mode A gave slightly better results. $BOD_5$ removal and nitrification efficiencies were more than 90% for both reactor. The organic matter and ammonia removals were also superior in the Mode A. The biofilm thickness and biomass increased as increment of EBCT and the upper part of reactor more about 30% than lower part. The specific oxygen uptake rate(SOUR) was higher the upper part of reactor and Mode A than the lower part of reactor and Mode B. A cost analysis showed that the Mode A system was more cost effectiveness. It could save the coagulant dose by about 67% and the chlorine demand by about 95%. The ideal place to put the BAF reactor was in front of the coagulation/sedimentation process.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
• /
• v.28 no.7
• /
• pp.752-756
• /
• 2006

The independent anoxic reactor was introduced in biological aerated filters as the regulation of water quality requirement, especially total nitrogen, had been strengthened. The process studied in this work was upflow $Biobead^{(R)}$ process which was used commercial invented for removal of organic materials and nitrification. For the purpose of evaluating the independent anoxic reactor, PCR-DGGE, of the molecular biological methods, was performed. Two types of nitrite reductase genes were selected. One is nirS represented cytocrome $cd_1$ nitrite reductase gene and the other is nirK represented Cu-containing nitrite reductase gene. Denitrifier community in the independent anoxic reactor was analyzed with PCR-DGGE using these two denitrifying functional genes. As the result of the PCR, only nirS gene was detected between nirS and nirK. With the result of the DGGE, specific bands became strong, as the operating days were longer, nitrate loading rate was increased. otherwise those of the initial activated sludge showed various bands. In the consequence of the sequence of DGGE bands, various denitrifiers were sequenced in the initial activated sludge, while specific denitrifiers like alcaligenes faecalis were predominant in the anoxic reactor. Consequently, introduction of the independent anoxic reactor made it possible to achieve 96% denitrification efficiency, and was proper for the modification of BAF process.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
• /
• v.20 no.6
• /
• pp.837-848
• /
• 2006

This paper presents the test results of biological aerated filtration(BAF) process to replace activated sludge process by enhancing treated effluent quality and reducing the costs. In BAF process both BOD and SS compounds in wastewater are degraded and removed by biological reaction and filtration. Upflow BAF with expanded polypropylene media and downflow BAF with ceramic media were used to investigate the effects of hydraulic and organic loads on effluent quality. As a result, in BAF processes which has different media, upflow BAF reactor shows 5% higher efficiency than downflow BAF and this phenomena caused by backwashing methods and operational conditions. The results of influence factors analyzed by Factor Analysis Method in BOD and SS treatment efficiency are the size of media, hight of media bed and type of media. The quantitative effects of media size are 5.73% in TBOD, 5.78% in SBOD and 7.65% in TSS, so we confirmed the main factor is media size.

• 한국생물공학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2000.04a
• /
• pp.343-346
• /
• 2000

This study was carried out to investigate the effects of influent $NH_4^{\;+}-N$ load, C/N ratio and superficial air velocity on the nitrogen removal efficiencies. Laboratory scale upflow biological aerated filter(BAF) was consisted of an anoxic-aerobic filter packed with porous ceramic media and operated with synthetic wastewater. BAFs requires less energy and space for the system when compared to conventional activated sludge process. The influent C/N ratios were varied from 0 to 1 by adjusting acetate. Various superficial air velocity had been applied to investigate aeration effect on nitrogen removal. The BAF reactor showed more than 90% average $NH_4^{\;+}-N$ removal efficiencies at $NH_4^{\;+}-N$ loading in the range of $0.26{\sim}1.33$ kg $NH_4^{\;+}-N/m^3{\cdot}d$ and 62% average T-N removal efficiencies at the C/N ratio of 1. Moreover, average T-N removal efficiencies increased as the superficial air velocity increased, because of the increase $NH_4^{\;+}-N$ removal efficiencies.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
• /
• v.30 no.1
• /
• pp.1-7
• /
• 2014

The purpose of this study was to investigate the nitrification characteristics of biological aerated filter (BAF) packed with ceramic media, especially focusing on nitrite build-up during nitrification. When increasing the nitrogen load above $1.63kgNH_4{^+}-N/m^3{\cdot}d$, ammonium removal efficiency decreased to less than 60% and the nitrite ratio ($NO_2{^-}-N/NO_x-N$) of higher than 75% was achieved due to the inhibitory free ammonia (FA, $NH_3-N$) concentration and oxygen limitation. FA inhibition, however, is not recommended strategy to promote nitrite build-up since FA concentration in the reactor is coupled with decreased ammonium removal efficiency. Nitrite ratio in the effluent was also affected by aeration rate and influent ammonium concentration. Ammonium oxidation was enhanced at a higher aeration rate regardless of influent ammonium concentration but, the nitrite ratio was dependent on both aeration rate and influent ammonium concentration. While a higher nitrite ratio was obtained when BAFs were fed with $50mgNH_4{^+}-N/L$ of influent, the nitrite ratio significantly decreased for a greater influent concentration of $200-300mgNH_4{^+}-N/L$. Taken together, aeration rate, influent ammonium concentration and FA concentrations kept in the BAF were found to be critical variables for nitrite accumulation in the BAF system.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
• /
• v.33 no.2
• /
• pp.77-84
• /
• 2011

This study was conducted to develop a novel combined system of a hybrid rotating biological contactor (RBC) process that was composed of an attached- and suspended- biomass reactor, followed by a settler and a biological aerated filter (BAF) column to treat a high strength slaughter wastewater. Long term influences of organic and nitrogen loading rates were investigated to see how the combined system worked in terms of the removal efficiency. A synthetic wastewater containing a pork cutlet steak source (commercially available) and swine blood was used to feed the combined system. The hybrid RBC process showed excellent removals: about 95% for soluble COD and 85% for ammonium nitrogen. However, the unsettled solids seriously deteriorated the removal efficiency of total COD (TCOD) and total nitrogen (TN) in the RBC process. A significant fraction of the TCOD and suspended solids (SS) was further removed in the BAF column although the effluent quality was still unsatisfactory, giving TCOD 300 mg/L, SS 180 mg/L and TN 59 mg/L. An addition of polyaluminium chloride into the RBC effluent improved the performance of the settler and BAF, producing an excellent quality of final effluent; TCOD 16.5 mg/L, SS 0 mg/L, TN 55.5 mg/L, TP 1.3 mg/L. Therefore, it was confirmed that the combined system of hybrid RBC and BAF could treat a high strength slaughter wastewater excellently.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
• /
• v.28 no.3
• /
• pp.276-285
• /
• 2006

When polluted stream water was treated with biological aerated filter(BAF) in pilot plant, all operation with 90, 60, 45 and 30 min of EBCT at fixed $0.1m^3air/m^2min$ of aeration showed 80% or higher treatment efficiency of particle materials(SS, turbidity and Chl.-a) and 85% or higher efficiency of ammonia nitrogen removal. It was thought that, in case of BOD, biological stability may sufficiently be assured with BAF because grade III or IV inflow water was changed to grade I for outflow water. In case of $COD_{Mn}$, about 60% of removal efficiency was found. When the mechanism of the result was investigated, about 30% of COD materials was produced by algae clogged in the reactor. There was almost no biological decomposition because specific substrate utilization rate of algogenic organic materials were $0.0245mg{\cdot}COD_{Mn}/mg{\cdot}VSS{\cdot}day$, thus partial backwashing(washing the media in 1 m upper of the reactor once a day) was required. It is thought that elevation of removal rate about 10% of $COD_{Mn}$ and 5.5% of $BOD_5$ could be obtained with partial backwashing resulting in assurance of biologically more stable raw water and that saving backwashing water may be significant.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
• /
• v.25 no.2
• /
• pp.329-334
• /
• 2009

Bacterial numbers, such as endospore-formers, and treatment efficiencies were investigated for Rotating Activated Bacillus Contactors (RABC) and other advanced wastewater treatment processes including anaerobic-anoxic-oxic (A2O), sequencing batch reactor (SBR) and biological aerated filter (BAF). Endospore-forming bacterial numbers in the RABC showed 129-fold higher levels than those of the existing advanced systems. RABC process demonstrated the highest bacterial numbers in its bioreactors (paired t-test, p<0.01). RBC biofilms and aeration tanks of the RABC system showed 131- and 476-fold higher than other existing advanced processes, respectively. Mean treatment efficiencies of the existing systems were 83.5% for chemical oxygen demand (COD), 59.1% for total nitrogen (TN) and 76.8% for total phosphorus (TP). However, RABC process removed 96.9% for COD, 96.9% for TN and 91.9% for TP for highly concentrated food wastewater (COD>1,500 mg/L, TN>150 mg/L, TP>50 mg/L). Treatment efficiency was significantly reduced when the numbers of Bacillus genus in the bioreactors decreased below $10^6CFU/mL$. The automated RABC (A-RABC), in which dissolved oxygen concentrations are automatically controlled, showed higher treatment efficiencies compared to the RABC process. The RABC system maintained sufficient bacterial numbers for the effective treatment of highly concentrated food wastewater. Moreover, final effluent was in agreement to water quality standards.