TABLE OF CONTENTS

..........................................................................................................................................2
System description...........................................................................................................2
Benefits........................................................................................................................2
Nutrient limited BAS.......................................................................................................4
HYBAS our IFAS process ..................................................................................................4
Special attributes..............................................................................................................5

MBBR WASTEWATER TREATMEN

Introduction
When communities of microorganisms grow on surfaces, they are called biofilms.
Microorganisms in a biofilm wastewater treatment process are more elastic to process
disturbances compared to other types of biological treatment processes. Thus, biofilm
wastewater treatment technologies can be considerably more robust especially when
compared to conventional technologies like activated sludge.
The very first biofilm process, the trickling filter, was invented towards the end of the
19th century. The trickling filter can be reliable and stable but does suffer from one
serious drawback; it easily becomes clogged and septic even under moderate loading
conditions.
In the MBBR biofilm technology the biofilm grows protected within engineered plastic
carriers, which are carefully designed with high internal surface area. These biofilm
carriers are suspended and thoroughly mixed throughout the water phase. With this
technology it is possible to handle extremely high loading conditions without any
problems of clogging, and treat industrial and municipal wastewater on a relatively
small footprint.

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The MBBR biofilm technology is efficient, compact and easy to operate. It can be an
excellent solution as a stand-alone process, a Moving Bed biofilm reactor, or it can be
used to specifically enhance or upgrade treatment potential of activated sludge processes.
The MBBR biofilm technology can be used as a preliminary treatment stage (BAS), as a
combined IFAS hybrid stage (HYBAS) and as final a polishing step

System description
The MBBR biofilm technology is based on specially designed plastic biofilm carriers or
biocarriers that are suspended and in continuous movement within a tank or reactor of
specified volume. The design of associated aerators, grids, sieves, spray nozzles and other
integral parts to the reactor is also of great importance in making up the system as a
whole.
The industrial and municipal wastewater is lead to the MBBR Treatment reactor where
biofilm, growing within the internal structures of the biocarriers, degrade the pollutants.
These pollutants that need to be removed in order to treat the wastewater are food or
substrate for growth of the biofilm. The biocarrier design is critical due to
requirements for good mass transfer of substrate and oxygen to the microorganisms
and there is a continuous R&D in the area of the MBBR biofilm technology. Excess
biofilm sloughs off the biocarrier in a natural way.

An aeration grid located at the bottom of the reactor supplies oxygen to the biofilm along
with the mixing energy required to keep the biocarriers suspended and completely mix
within the reactor.
Treated water flows from reactor through a grid or a sieve, which retains the MBBR
biocarriers in the reactor. Depending on the wastewater, the reactors are may be
equipped with special spray nozzles that prevent excessive foam formation

Benefits

• Highly compact upgrade solutions

• Increased operational stability through capacity to absorb sudden peak loadings
• Low energy consumption
• Negligible headloss
• Virtually maintenance free - self-cleaning technology
• Eliminates the need for solids separation and RAS for performance
• Robust biofilm
• Flexible reactor design
• Easy upgrade of existing plants
• Easy to operate and control

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 • No sludge return needed in most applications
• Low load on particle separation stage

The advantages of MBBR are that it occupies lower area and lower power consumption
vis-à-vis activated sludge or extended aeration plant. This is because the aeration tank
detention time is about 4 hours of average flow. This reduces blower power. Also, this
plant can operate on intermittent flow. This enables you to utilize the full pumping
capacity of selected pump OR selecting a higher capacity of pump with lesser operational
hours without worrying about operational efficiency of the STP (sewage treatment plant).
Lower detention times also result in lower basin construction costs. Other advantages
are that it can be fully covered at top and being modular in construction, can be run at full
or half capacity or modules can be added to enhance its capacity.

BioCarriers
 MBBR activated sludge
 BAS
 LSP
 Hybas
Small treatment plants Nitrogen reduction Phosphorous reduction Industrial BioKidney
Fungal processes thermophilic processes anaerobic treatment Lagoon Guard
Microscopy Chemical analyses Biodegradation tests Inhibition bioassays

BAS (Biofilm Activated sludge)

BAS is a biological treatment process that combines the very best from activated sludge
and Moving Bed biofilm technologies. Careful design of process stages yields an optimal
activated sludge stage and a MBBR biofilm stage that is robust towards peak and shock
contaminant loading conditions. The result is consistently high and reliable treatment
efficiency of any type of industrial wastewater.
The initial MBBR biofilm unit process shaves the loadings peaks and any toxic inhibition
effects while removing 50 to 70 percent of the incoming BOD. This pretreatment

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achieves 2 to 3 times increased capacity compared to a traditional activated sludge
process while also being more compact. Furthermore, the BAS-process improves
activated sludge characteristics making the activated sludge stage more inherently stable
with a waste sludge that is easier to dewater.
If already existing tanks at a given site can be retrofitted, a simple BAS process upgrade
to a faltering activated sludge process can be readily accomplished. Filling one tank with
MBBR biocarriers creates the BAS pretreatment stage that relieves the overloaded
activated sludge process. The Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor (MBBR) stage is optimized
to remove as much of the COD as possible.

Nutrient limited BAS

The nutrient limited BAS process is a refined BAS strategy to significantly decrease
waste sludge production in cases where nutrients must be added to the wastewater. In the
biofilm stage, the COD in the wastewater is converted to polysaccharides. These
polysaccharides are in turn used to produce biomass in the activated sludge stage. The
polysaccharide production and consumption cost the bacteria a lot of energy and this
expense limits their growth. Reduced growth means a decreased amount of waste sludge
produced and that translates into operations savings.

LSP (Low Sludge Production)

The LSP technology is based on a two-stage process where in the first stage mainly free-
living bacteria are promoted to grow. These dispersed bacteria will remove most of the
biodegradable COD in the wastewater. The second activated sludge stage favors the
growth of floc forming bacteria and large quantities of protozoa. The floc forming
bacteria consume the remaining degradable COD and the protozoa feed on the free-living
bacteria coming from the first stage. The outcome is a prolonged food chain and,
consequently, a lower overall amount of waste sludge produced.

HYBAS our IFAS process

HYBAS process combines the Moving Bed biofilm technology and activated sludge in
the same tank. The HYBAS process is especially suitable for nitrogen removal with
municipal wastewater but can also be used for some industrial applications. The
advantage for the nitrification process in this advanced wastewater treatment process
comes in the selective control of solids retention time and the creation of multiple
environments for enrichment of bacteria that specialize in different aspects of the
treatment. Reduction of BOD and denitrification is handled by the activated sludge
whereas nitrification becomes the primary job in the biofilm on the MBBR biofilm
carriers.

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Special attributes
The HYBAS wastewater treatment process comes with a number of special inherent
attributes embodied in the biofilm concept and the design:

• Small tank volumes

• it occupies lower area and lower power consumption vis-à-vis activated sludge
• Increased sludge age improves the nitrification process
• Reduced risk for bulking problems caused by filamentous organisms (improved
sludge characteristics)
• A protected specialized environment for the nitrifies
• Less temperature dependency
• Easy to handle the complete process
• Low sludge formation
• High efficiency in almost half operation time
• Overall small volume is required
• Less temperature reliance
• Latest technology
• High nitrification and denitrification
• Environment responsive
• No odor from whole plant in the entire process