Determination of kinetic parameters in a biological aerated filter (BAF) for wastewater treatment

Abstract

A laboratory scale biological aerated filter, upflow, the organic loading rates were adjusted to 0.9, 1.5, 2.1 and 3.0 kgDQO/m3 d using synthetic wastewater. In this study the kinetic parameters of the simultaneous removal of organic matter and ammoniacal nitrogen were determined. The removal of total and dissolved COD increases inversely with the organic load from 74% to 80% and from 81% to 86%, respectively. Ammoniacal nitrogen is removed, from 72% to 87%. The hydraulic retention time was 2 h. The kinetic model used corresponds to the Monod model. The kinetic parameters obtained are the following values, Y of 0.55 mgTSS/mgCOD, kd of 0.09 d−1, μmax of 0.24 d−1 and Ks of 7.2 mgCOD/L. The hydraulic behavior of the reactor was determined, using the Wolf and Resnick models and the axial dispersion, resulting mainly in completely mixed behavior.