• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.337-344
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• 1990

Slime sampless from 10 ratating biological contactor (RBC) plants in New Jersey were microscopically examined. Filamentous bacteria such as Type 1701, Type 0041, Type 021N, Nocardia, Beggiatoa, and Sphaerotilus, which are commonly present as suspended forms also were found in RBC slimes growing as attached forms. However, the abundance wwas much different from that of activated sludge. In RBC slimes, Beggiatoa was most frequently observed filamentous bacteria and Sphaerotilus, Type 0041, Type 1701, Type 021N and Nocardia were present in decreasing order of abundance. There were morphologically two different types of Behhiatia in RBC slimes. The statistical anaysis shows that filamentous bacterial poulations between the 100 cm inside and the outside the RBC were different in most cases with significant interactions between the location and stage.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2013

This study was focused on improving nitrification efficiencies of M-dephanox (Modified-Dephanox) process. Rotating biological contactor (RBC) was used instead of floating sponge type media in nitrification reactor. High ammonia removal efficiencies were observed in nitrification reactor, regardless of organic loading from contactor of M-dephanox process. Denitrification efficiencies were also increased to maintain low $NO_3-N$ concentration in effluent. This enhanced phosphate release in anaerobic contactor and resulted in high removal efficiencies of phophorus. Average removal efficiencies of $TCOD_{Cr}$ and $SCOD_{Cr}$ were 93.8% and 81.6%, respectively, while those of TKN and ${NH_4}^+-N$ were 80.9% and 74.4%, respectively. As for phosphorous treatment, the average removal efficiencies of TP and OP were 94.7% and 94.3%, respectively. Also, effect of operating temperature on nitrogen removal was examined. Average removal efficiency of TN was 65.8 % at $15^{\circ}C$ or below (at average temperature of $13.3^{\circ}C$), while that was 82.8% at $15^{\circ}C$ or above (at average temperature of $21.9^{\circ}C$).

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.189-199
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• 2002

Nitrogen, in its various forms, can deplete dissolved oxygen levels in receiving waters, stimulate aquatic growth, exhibit toxicity toward aquatic life and affect the suitability of sewage for reuse. Pilot-scale Rotating Biological Contactor(RBC) experiments were conducted to examine biological nitrification, respectively, of municipal sewage with five different internal recirculation ratios of 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 using the constant hydraulic loading of $205L/m^2{\cdot}day$. The use of internal recirculation improved nitrification on account of the dilution of biodegradable organic carbon in influent sewage down to 15 mg/L of $SBOD_5$ or less. Ammonium nitrogen of $14.3{\pm}2.4%$ was consumed by cellular assimilation without the occurrence of denitrification. The thickness of biofilm didn't seem effect significantly the nitrification and denitrification. Nitrification with internal recirculation was found to occur using hydraulic loading rate of as high as $205L/m^2{\cdot}day$, which was beyond the generally known values of it.

• Journal of Aquaculture
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.311-321
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• 1993

Ammonia accumulation is regarded as the limiting factor of the first priority in water qualities of aquatic culture systems. Nitrification efficiency and characteristics in seawater were evaluated using Rotating Biological Contactor (RBC) process as a part of the recycling water treatment facilities for marine fish culture system. Ammonia removal efficiency regarded 99.7 to $83.7\%$ at the ammonia surface loading rates of 48 to $393 mg/m^2$ -day. RBC process was able to withstand to the fluctuation of influent ammonia concentrations and loading and produced the stable effluent. The mathematical model on the fixed-film biological reactor developed by Kornegay seemed to be suitable to RBC process kinetic evaluation for the recycling water treatment of the marine fish culture system. Area capacity constant (P) and half-velocity constant (Ks) in the model were 0.188g/m^2$-day and 1.25mg/l, respectively.

• Journal of Aquaculture
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.142-150
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• 2003

Performance of a biological filter, the rotating biological contactor (RBC), is affected by rotational speed and hydraulic residence time (HRT). A RBC with a disc diameter of 62 cm, total surface area of 48.28 $m^2$, volume of 0.34 ㎥, and submergence ratio of 35.4% was tested for the combinations of five rotational speeds (1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 rpm) and three HRT (0.5, 1.0 & 2.0 hr) to find out the maximum removal efficiencies of total ammonia nitrogen (TAN) and nitrite nitrogen of a simulated recirculating aquaculture system. Ammonia loading rate in the system was 25 g of TAN/ ㎥. day. Removal efficiencies were checked when TAN concentrations in the system stabilized for 3 days in each treatment. The concentration of TAN in the system decreased with increasing rotational speed of the RBC up to 4 rpm in all HRT (P<0.05). At the rotational speed of 5 rpm, the efficiencies decreased in all HRT (P<0.05). When the rotational speeds were 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 rpm, TAN concentrations in the system were 1.35, 0.94, 0.69, 0.66, and 0.76 mg/L at the 0.5 hr HRT, 2.86, 1.18, 0.96, 0.87, and 1.11 mg/L at the 1.0 hr HRT, and 5.30, 2.44, 1.99, 1.77, and 2.01 mg/L at the 2.0 hr HRT, respectively. The TAN removal efficiencies of the RBC at the rotational speeds of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 rpm were 32.9, 49.5, 65.1, 72.9, and 62.9% in 0.5 hr HRT,33.1, 74.1, 87.1, 95.8, and 78.5% in 1.0 hr HRT, and 35.5, 76.7, 89.6, 97.0, and 85.5% in 2.0 hr HRT, respectively. TAN removal efficiency of RBC per pass increased with increasing HRT. However, TAN concentration in the system also increased. The best operating condition among the treatments was obtained at the treatment of 0.5 hr HRT and 4 rpm (P<0.05). The TAN concentration was 0.66 mg/L. Concentrations of nitrite nitrogen (NO$_2$$^{[-10]}$ -N) in the system decreased with increasing rotational speed in all HRT while that in the system increased with increasing HRT in all rotational speeds. The ranges of NO$_2$$^{[-10]}$ -N concentrations at HRT of 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 hr in the system were 0.26~0.32, 0.31~0.56, and 0.43~l.45 mg/L, respectively. The ranges of daily removal rates of TAN in this system were 20.03~23.0 g TAN/㎥ㆍday and those of nitrite nitrogen were 19.65~30.25 g NO$_2$$^{[-10]}$ -N/㎥ㆍday.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.77-84
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• 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 on Water Environment
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.190-195
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• 2004

A new technology for advanced wastewater treatment was developed using a modified Rotating Biological Contactor (RBC) process, named as Rotating Activated Bacillus Contactor (RABC) process that utilizes Bacillus sp., the facultatively anaerobic or activated microaerophilic bacteria on multiple-stage reticular rotating carriers, as a predominant species. The RABC process for a municipal wastewater with relatively low concentrations of organics, nitrogen, and phosphorus showed stable and high removal efficiencies, less than $BOD_5$ 10 mg/L, T-N 15 mg/L, and T-P 1.5 mg/L in final effluent. The performance load of RABC process was shown to be $1.23kg{\cdot}BOD/m^2{\cdot}day$ for the first stage (average $0.31kg{\cdot}BOD/m^2{\cdot}day$ for the total stages) based on both removed BOD and converted disc area corresponding to the reticular one. The sludge produced in the RABC process is characterized by low generation rate (about $0.18kg{\cdot}MLSS/kg{\cdot}BOD$) and excellent settleability. The number ratio of Bacillus ($2.4{\times}10^6CFU/ml$) to heterotrophic bacteria ($3.6{\times}10^7CFU/ml$) inhabiting in the biofilms of the RABC process was 6.7 %, indicating that Bacillus sp. was a predominant species in the biofilms. The RABC process with reticular rotating carriers showed its excellent performance for the advanced wastewater treatment without any offensive odor problem due to organic overloading.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.367-372
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• 2000

A series of experiment was conducted to investigate the relationship between ammoia removal rate and ammonia loading rates in seawater filtering system using rotating biological contactor (RBC). In this experiment, RBC system was consisted of rotating polyvinyl film disks, which provided $12 m^2$ of total effective surface area in $0.075 m^3$ of volume. $NH_4Cl$ was added by $10{\~}150 g$ as a ammonia nitrogen source to determine ammonia removal rate in RBC system. Relationship between time required for ammonia removal (y: hour) and nitrogen inputted ($x: NH_4-N mg/l$) in RBC system was as followed: $y=3.51+7.76 lnx (r^2=0.936)$. At ammonia concentration $2 mg/l$, it took 10 hour for removal of ammonia in the RBC system. However, at ammonia concentration of $5 and 16.5 mg/l$, it took 16 and 27 hours, respectively. There was a decreasing tencency of an increasing ammonia in the rearing water. Finally, the ammonia removal rate in the RBC system increased with the rise of total ammonia concentration up to $16.5 mg/l$.

• Journal of environmental and Sanitary engineering
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.43-52
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• 1996

Using rotating biological contactor(RBC) with artificial endogenous stage and aerobic fixed biofilm reactor(AFBR), organic material removal and biological nitrification of piggery wastewater has been studied at a pilot plant. RBC was operated in the endogenous phase at a interval of every 25 days. The concentration of COD, BOD and TKN in influent wastewater were from 2,940 to 3,800 mg/L, from 1,190 to 1,850 mg/L and from 486 to 754 mg/L respectively. The maximum active biomass content represented as VSS per unit aera was $2.0mg/cm$^{2}$ and biofilm dry density of $17mg/cm^{3}$ was observed at biofilm thickness of $900{\;}{\mu}m$. It was observed that the pilot scale RBC/AFBR process exhibited 72 percentage to 93 percentage of BOD removal, In order to obtain more than 90 percentage of BOD removal, the organic loading rate to the RBC/AFBR process should be maintained less than $0.09{\;}m^{3}/m^{2}{\cdot}day(125.9g{;\}BOD/m^{3}{\cdot}d$. The TKN removal efficiencies was from 45.5 to 90.9 percentage according to vary influent loading rate, It was estimated that the RBC/AFBR process consumed approximately 6.2 mg/L(as $CaCO_{3}$) of alkalinity per 1 mg/L of $NH_{3}$-N oxidized as the nitrification took piace.

• Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.52-57
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• 1999

Air-drived rotating biological contactor (RBC) system, which is effective method in filtering performance, was tested for the nitrification capacity in a recirculating system. At ammonia concentrations between 0.029 and 0.528 mg/l, the effect of ammonia loading rate on ammonia removal rate at three different hydraulic loading rates could be defined by the following first­order regression models: Hydraulic loading rate of $14.8 m^3/m^3/day:\;y=39.2\times+3.4 (r^2=0.9137)$, Hydraulic loading rate of $26.5 m^3/m^3/day: y=53.3\times+4.0 (r^2=0.8686)$, Hydraulic loading rate of $37.3 m^3/m^3/day: y=58.4\times+4.2 (r^2=0.7755)$, where, $\times$ is ammonia loading rate (mg/l), y is ammonia removal rate $(g/m^3/day)$, The equations showed the optimal ammonia removal rate at the hydraulic loading rate of $26.5m^3/m^3/day$. Below the ammonia concentration of 2.72 mg/l, first-order regression models between ammonia loading rate and ammonia removal rate at three different rates of speed are defined as follows: Rotational speed of $0.75 rpm: y=28.5\times+4.7 (r^2=0.9143)$, Rotational speed of $1.0 rpm: y=33.6\times+8.4 (r^2=0.9534)$, Rotational speed of $2.0 rpm: y=28.9\times+3.6 (r^2=0.9488)$, where, x is ammonia loading rate (mg/l), y is ammonia removal rate $(g/m^3day)$. The equations show the ammonia removal rate at the rotational speed of 1.0 rpm is significantly higher than that at the rotational speed of either 0.75 rpm or 2.0 rpm (P<0.05).