[Biological phosphorus removal in intermittent aerated biological filter]

Under intermittent aerated and continuous fed operation where the biofilm system was subjected to alternated anaerobic/aerobic condition, the effect of influent volatile fatty acids (VFAs) concentrations, operation cycle and backwash on the biological phosphorus removal performance of the biofilter was studied. In the experiment, synthetic domestic wastewater was used, and the influent velocity was 5 L x h(-1) with gas versus liquid ratio of 8:1 and hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 1.3 h, resulting in average COD, ammonium and phosphorus load of 4.7, 0.41 and 0.095 g x (L x d) (-1) respectively. Results show that, (1) effective release and uptake of phosphorus was achieved in a operation cycle; (2) when influent VFAs was 100 mg x L(-1) (calculated by COD value) and operation cycle was 6 h the filter performed best in phosphorus removal, the phosphorus loading removal rate can be as much as 0.059 g x (L x d)(-1) at the aerated phase with those of COD and ammonium being 3.8 g x (L x d)(-1) and 0.28 g x (L x d)(-1) respectively, and with average effluent phosphorus, COD and ammonium concentrations being 1.8, 43.6 and 8.7 mg x L(-1), which shows nitrogen loss also happened; (3) the pause of backwash decreased the phosphorus removal performance rapidly with the removal efficiency lower than 40% in two days, but the consequent daily backwash operation gave a short improvement on the phosphorus removal, which disappeared in another two days. Thus, it is shown that biological phosphorus removal achieved with better phosphorus loading removal performance in the biofilter under intermittent aerated and continuous fed operation, and that sufficient and stable influent VFAs concentration, proper operation cycle, and more frequent backwash favored the performance.