Treatment of septic tank effluent using moving-bed biological reactor: kinetic and biofilm morphology

Septic tanks are very commonly used wastewater collection systems throughout the world, and especially in rural areas. In this study, the use of moving-bed biological reactors (MBBR) for the treatment of septic tank effluent (STE) was examined. The study was conducted in two phases. In Phase I, the performance of septic tanks from four projects working under different operational conditions and with different service lives was followed to determine the parameters that required further treatment. In Phase II, four specially designed continuous flow pilot-plant MBBRs and one laboratory-scale batch reactor were tested for their efficiency in treating STE. Experiments were carried out at various temperatures (8–25 °C) and with different hydraulic retention times (HRTs). MBBR effectively reduced STE’s nutrients and chemical oxygen demand by 90 and 85 %, respectively, over 180 days of operation. The average ammonia removal rate at 25 °C increased from 0.279 to 0.540 kg N/m³ when the reactor HRT changed from 5.7 to 13.3 h. Under these conditions, the ammonia removal kinetics were successfully correlated with a theta model with an average θ value of 1.054. The biofilm morphology showed a stable and global biomass coverage (>70 %) and a high percentage of live cells. A thinner biofilm was observed when the MBBR operated at high temperatures. The results of this study showed that MBBR is a promising technology for post-treatment of septic tank effluent.