Simulation of attached growth biological wastewater treatment process in the mobile bed biofilm reactor

The biological wastewater treatment process is one of the most efficient processes to remove organic compounds from wastewater. More than 80% of the existing wastewater treatment plants the activated sludge process in which suspended bacteria oxidize the carbonaceous and nitrogen compounds, so that effluents in accordance with the imposed standards are obtained. The biological process was improved during the last few years. One of these new processes is obtained by the addition of specially designed mobile elements into the aeration tank that provide the carriers for the biological growth. This paper presents some simulation results of this process for various scenarios, using different loading conditions and percentage of the total volume of the tank occupied by the carrier media. Theoretical results are compared with experimental ones. Another set of simulations was performed for a combined biofilm-activated sludge process in order to evaluate the operation performances and to see if the proposed technology provides good result.