Kaiser Tobias, Fundneider Thomas, Lackner Susanne
Technical University of Darmstadt, Institute IWAR, Chair of Water and Environmental Biotechnology, Franziska-Braun-Straße 7, 64287 Darmstadt, Germany.
Mecana AG, Industriestrasse 39, 8864 Reichenburg, Switzerland.
Water Res X. 2024 Jul 8;24:100235. doi: 10.1016/j.wroa.2024.100235. eCollection 2024 Sep 1.
Biofiltration processes are often part of advanced wastewater treatment (aWWT) technologies for the removal of organic micropollutants (OMP) from conventional wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents. Although biological effects are not always the main focus of these technologies (e.g. filtration through granular activated carbon), they have been shown to contribute significantly to total OMP removal. While OMP biodegradation kinetics in conventional biological wastewater treatment are well researched, no systematic comparison to biomass from aWWT is available. This biomass faces different growth conditions and higher OMP concentrations relative to the background organic matter. Adaptation to these conditions could be possible and could lead to faster OMP biodegradation kinetics, which would show in a larger pseudo first-order biodegradation kinetic constant k. In this work, k values for biomass obtained from aWWT biofilters were determined by evaluating OMP removals measured in lab-scale biofilters using a mechanistic model of the experimental setup. A comparison to k values from literature for conventional wastewater treatment (with nutrient removal) revealed similar OMP biodegradation kinetics without any advantages of biomass from aWWT. A conceptual evaluation of influencing factors on OMP removal in biofilters showed that operational parameters (such as the biomass concentration or the empty bed contact time) and the affinity of OMPs to adsorb on biomass have a significant additional effect on biological OMP removal. Therefore, k values alone are not sufficient to estimate biological OMP removal in biofilters and further information about the system is required.
生物过滤工艺通常是高级废水处理（aWWT）技术的一部分，用于从传统污水处理厂（WWTP）的出水去除有机微污染物（OMP）。尽管生物效应并非总是这些技术的主要关注点（例如通过颗粒活性炭过滤），但已证明它们对OMP的总去除有显著贡献。虽然传统生物废水处理中OMP的生物降解动力学已得到充分研究，但尚无与aWWT产生的生物质进行系统比较的研究。相对于背景有机物，这种生物质面临不同的生长条件和更高的OMP浓度。适应这些条件是可能的，并且可能导致更快的OMP生物降解动力学，这将表现为更大的伪一级生物降解动力学常数k。在这项工作中，通过使用实验装置的机理模型评估实验室规模生物滤池中测得的OMP去除率，确定了从aWWT生物滤池中获得的生物质的k值。与文献中传统废水处理（有营养物去除）的k值进行比较，结果表明OMP生物降解动力学相似，aWWT产生的生物质没有任何优势。对生物滤池中影响OMP去除的因素进行概念性评估表明，操作参数（如生物质浓度或空床接触时间）以及OMP吸附在生物质上的亲和力对生物OMP去除有显著的额外影响。因此，仅k值不足以估计生物滤池中生物OMP的去除，还需要有关该系统的更多信息。
