• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.5-14
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• 2010

A pilot-scale biological aerated filter (BAF) was operated with an anaerobic, anoxic and oxic zone at $23{\pm}1^{\circ}C$. The influent sCOD and total nitrogen concentrations in the feedwater were approximately 250 mg/L and 35 mg N/L, respectively. sCOD removal at optimum hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 3 hours with recirculation rates of 100, 200 and 300% in the column was more than 96%. Total nitrogen removal was consistently above 80% for 4 and 6 hours HRT at 300% recirculation. For 3 hours HRT and 300% recirculation, total nitrogen removal was approximately 79%. Based on fitting results, the kinetic parameter values on nitrification and denitrification show that as recirculation rates increased, the rate of ammonia and nitrate transformation increased. The ammonium loading rates for maximum ammonium removed were 0.15 and 0.19 kg $NH_3$-N/$m^3$-day for 100% and 200% recirculation, respectively. The experimental results demonstrated that the BAF can be operated at an HRT of 3 hours with 200 - 300% recirculation rates with more than 96 % removal of sCOD and ammonium, and at least 75% removal of total nitrogen.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 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 Water and Wastewater
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.837-848
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• 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.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.523-532
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• 2000

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the hydraulic retention time (HRT) and organic loading rate (OLR) on microbial characteristics and treatment efficiency in sewage treatment using aerated submerged biological filter (ASBF) reactor. This reactor combines biodegradation of organic substrates by fixed biomass with a physical separation of biomass by filtration in a single reactor. Both simulated wastewater and domestic wastewater were used as feed solutions. The experimental conditions were a temperature of 17 to $27^{\circ}C$, a hydraulic retention time of 1 to 9hr, an organic loading rate of 0.47 to $3.84kg\;BOD/m^3{\cdot}day$ in ASBF reactor. This equipment could obtain a stable effluent quality in spite of high variation of influent loading rate. Total biomass concentration. biofilm thickness and biofilm mass increased an exponential function according to the increasing OLR. The relationships between water content and biofilm density were in inverse proportion. The percentage of backwash water to influent flow was almost 9%. The separation efficiency of biomass was the percentage of 91 to 92 in ASBF reactor. The sludge production rates in feed solutions of simulated wastewater and domestic wastewater were 0.14~0.26 kg VSS/kg BODrem, 0.43~0.48 kg VSS/kg BODrem, respectively.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.554-560
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• 2020

This study focuses on nitrification through a biological aerated filter (BAF) that is filled with a zeolite medium at low concentrations of ammonia. The zeolite medium consists of natural zeolite powder. The BAF is operated under two types of media, which are a ball-type zeolite medium and expanded poly propylene (EPP) medium. Nitrification occurred in the zeolite BAF (ZBAF) when the influent concentration of ammonia nitrogen was 3 mg L-1, but the BAF that was filled with an EPP medium did not experience nitrification. The ammonia nitrogen removal efficiency of ZBAF was 63.38% and the average nitrate nitrogen concentration was 1.746 mg/L. The ZBAF was tested again after a comparison experiment to treat pond water, and municipal wastewater mixed pond water. The ZBAF showed remarkable ammonia-nitrogen treatment at low concentration and low temperature. During this period, the average ammonia nitrogen removal efficiency was 64.56%. Especially, when water temperature decreased to 4.7℃, ammonia nitrogen removal efficiency remained 79%. On the other hand, the chemical-oxygen demand (COD) and phosphorus-removal trends were different. The COD and phosphorus did not show as efficient treatment as the ammonia-nitrogen treatment.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.327-331
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• 2005

The study was conducted with two laboratory biological aerated filter (BAF) reactors: denitrification filter (DF) and nitrification BAF. The influent flow (Q) was fixed to 48 L/d and total empty bed contact time (EBCT) was 1 hr. The flow direction was upflow with NRCY of 1 to 2Q. The secondary effluent was fed to the reactors and the influent concentrations were adjusted with some stock solutions to simulate by-pass concentration during rainfall. The study results indicate that COD and SS removal efficiencies were excellent and not influenced by temperature. Nitrification efficiency was over 90% at the influent loading less than $1.12kg/media\;m^3/d$, but the efficiencies were decreased in low temperature. TN removal efficiencies were 10% to 60%.

• 한국생물공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2000.11a
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• pp.451-454
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• 2000

This study was carried out to investigate the effects of hydraulic backwash load and porous ceramic media on the biological nitrogen removal efficiencies of a biological aerated filter. An upflow anoxic-oxic biological aerated filter(AO-BAF) with porous ceramic media can remove nitrogen by nitrification and denitrification in single unit. After the AO-BAF backwash, nitrogen removal efficiency was lowest and gradually increased to the steady state. Nitrification efficiency, however, showed the opposite result. It is likely that the biofilms are exposed to aerobic condition as the excess biofilms were sloughed off by backwashing

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

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.250-256
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• 2017

This study investigated the removal efficiency of organic matter and nitrogen from fish farm effluent by hydraulic retention time (HRT) using an upflow biological filter (ANR system) reactor. The recycling time and influent flow in the reactor were controlled to 14.8, 7.4, 5.5 and 3.2 h to evaluate HRT. In addition, each reactor was coupled to a fixed bed upflow filter charged with media. The results showed that removal efficiency was ${\geq}95%%$ with an HRT of 5.5 h, and nitrification efficiency was reduced to 81% with an HRT of 3.2 h, although nitrification efficiency temporarily decreased due to the shock load as HRT decreased. Total nitrogen removal rate was also reduced to about 65% with an HRT of 3.2 h, which was considered a washout effect of nitrifying and denitrifying microorganisms by increasing the shearing force to the filter media, which decreased organic matter and nitrogen removal efficiency.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.79-84
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• 2010

Three biological aerated filters (BAFs) composed of a PVC pipe with a diameter of 75 mm were constructed and operated at a waste-water temperature at $13^{\circ}C$. The media used for each BAF were: 5-mm gravel; 5-mm lava rock; 12.5-mm diameter by 15-mm long plastic rings, all with a media depth of 1.7 m. The feedwater, which simulated the effluent of aerated lagoons, had influent soluble chemical oxygen demand (sCOD) and ammonia concentrations of approximately 50 and 25 mg/L, respectively. For a hydraulic retention time (HRT) of two hours without recirculation, ammonia percent removals were 98.5, 98.9, and 97.8%, for the gravel, lava rock, and plastic rings, respectively. By increasing the effluent recirculation from 100 to 200% for an HRT of one hour, respective ammonia removals improved from 90.1 to 96, 76.5 to 90, and 65.3 to 79.5% for gravel, lava rock, and plastic rings. Based on the ammonia and sCOD loadings for different HRTs, the estimated maximum ammonia loading was approximately 0.6 kg $NH_3-N/m^3$-day for the three BAFs of different media types. The zero-order biotransformation rates for the BAF with gravel were found to be higher than the lava rock and plastic ring media. The results ultimately showed that BAF can be used as an add-on system to aerated lagoons or as a secondary treatment unit to meet ammonia discharge limits.