Development of a Novel 3-Stage BAF System for

Enhancing Nitrification Performance at Short Hydraulic

Retention Time
H. D. Ryu*,J. S. Kim**, G. W. Shin** and S. I. Lee**
* Ministry of Environment, Geum River Basin Environmental Office, 409 Daehak-ro, Yusung-gu, Daejeon 305-706,
Republic of Korea
** Department of Environmental Engineering, Chungbuk National University, 410 Gaesin,
Cheongju, Chugnbuk, Korea
(E-mail: nanumenv@hanmail.net ; j1405j@hanmai.net ; shingw@chungbuk.ac.kr ; gatorlee@chungbuk.ac.kr)

Introduction
 The biological aerated filter (BAF) system was developed in Europe and the widely applied all over the world as a novel wastewater treatment system.

 It adopts a granular media as the support for microbial biofilms that provide the depth filtration action

 BAF also offers a small footprint alternative to conventional oxic processes. In addition, the BAF can achieve the higher nitrification performance
compared to the suspended growth process (SGP), due to the fact that the system is the attachment growth process (AGP).

 Although the BAF system has many advantages as mentioned above, the system is required to be effectively operated in shorter hydraulic retention
time (HRT) compared to the present HRT condition because the more stringent effluent criteria for T-N is expected in handling the increased amount of
wastewater.

 Nevertheless, it has been reported from the previous studies that the nitrification performance of the BAF system was deteriorated at short HRT.

 This work was therefore aimed to propose a new novel 3-stage BAF system which can perform almost perfect nitrification in the short HRT less than 1 h
by incorporating an intermittent aerated BAF reactor into the modified Ludzack-Ettinger (MLE)-type BAF system.

Material and methods Results and Discussion

 Two lab-scale BAF systems were prepared for this study (Fig. 1). One  Fig. 2 clearly showed that the although the NH4-N removal efficiency of
was the MLE-type BAF system used as a “reference” reactor (Fig. 1a) and two systems was almost same at the HRT of 3 and 2 h, that of 3-stage BAF
the other was the proposed 3-stage BAF system (Fig. 1b) designed for system proposed in this work was 8 % higher than that of control BAF
enhancing nitrification performance. system at the HRT of 1 h.
(a) MLE-type BAF (b) Proposed BAF
Backwash water
Control
3-stage BAF

120

100
NH4-N removal (%)

80

Anoxic/ Oxic
60
Anoxic Oxic

40

20

Internal circulation water

0
Run 1 Run 2 Run 3
Fig. 1. Operational concepts of the reference (a) and proposed BAF Operating condition
system (b) in this work. Functions of each column were indicated in
Fig. 2. Comparison of effect of HRT on NH4-N removal between two
parenthesis.
systems.
Table 1. Operating parameters of conventional MLE-type BAF and  According to Fig. 3, the intermittently aerated reactor decreased SCOD
3-stage BAF process. concentration in the range of 3-8 mg/L and it finally enhanced the NH4-N
removal of the 3-stage BAF system by facilitating the growth of nitrifiers at
Process MLE-type BAF 3-stage BAF the HRT of 1 h even if the difference of SCOD concentration did not affect
Intermittent the NH4-N removal between two systems at the HRT of 3 and 2 h.
Rector Anoxic Oxic Anoxic Oxic
oxic
Rector Control
Volume (L)
12 12 12 12 12 3-stage BAF

Media 70

packing (%)
50 50 50 25 50
Run 3
Loaded SCOD to oxic reactor (mg/L)

Run 2
60

Media Polypropylene Polypropylene Polypropylene Polypropylene Polypropylene

50
HRT (hr) 3, 2, 1 3, 2, 1
40
Mode
Inermittent Oxic = 1 hr (AIR on & off)
change 30

 The municipal wastewater was collected from a wastewater treatment 20

plant, which is located in Cheongju, Korea. The raw influent was
characterized in Table 2. 10 Run 1

Table 2. Characterization of raw municipal wastewater. 0

Parameter Average value 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Operation day
Total chemical oxygen demand (TCOD) (mg/L) 157
Soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD) (mg/L) 51 Fig. 3. Loaded concentration of SCOD to oxic reactor.
Suspended solid (SS) (mg/L) 90
Total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN) (mg/L) 26  It is therefore believed that the proposed 3-stage BAF system could be
effectively applicable under the condition where the BAF system should be
NH4-N (mg/L) 15 operated in treating a large amount of wastewater (in very short HRT).
PO4-P 1.2
pH 7.2