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Perfomance of single-stage rotating biological contactor with supplemental

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Environmental Engineering and Management Journal March 2014, Vol.13, No. 3, 681-688
http://omicron.ch.tuiasi.ro/EEMJ/

“Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iasi, Romania

PERFOMANCE OF SINGLE-STAGE ROTATING BIOLOGICAL

CONTACTOR WITH SUPPLEMENTAL AERATION

Dragan Cvetkovic1, Vanja Susterstic1, Dusan Gordic1, Milorad Bojic1, Srdjan Stosic2
1
University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Engineering, Serbia
2
Metro Cash&Carry doo, Belgrade, Serbia

Abstract

The aim of this paper was to study the performance of a single-stage rotating biological contactor with supplemental aeration in
terms of removal efficiency of organic and nitrogen content. Research was based on fifteen samples collected during the four
year period. The wastewater was low strength with maximal measured concentration of 362 mg COD/l, 100 mg NH4/l, and 324
mg TSS/L. The maximal measured removal efficiency of COD (chemical oxygen demand) and TSS (total suspend solids) were
71% and 56%, respectively. The high rate of nitrogen removal was achieved using supplemental aeration. The removal efficiency
of NH4, NO2 and NO3 were 83%, 60% and 52%, respectively.

Key words: nitrogen removal, organic removal, single-stage rotating biological contactor, supplemental aeration, wastewater

Received: December, 2011; Revised final: June, 2012; Accepted: July, 2012

1. Introduction transfer in the biofilm (Kubsad et al., 2004). One of

One of the most widely used system for
municipal wastewater treatment in developing
countries is the Rotating biological contactor (RBC).
Rotating biological contactor is a remediation
technology used in the secondary wastewater
treatment. The constant rotation of a disc causes
mixing of the liquid. Also, the rotating disc surface
alternately comes into the contact with between air
and wastewater and thus acts as an aeration device
for wastewater treatment. RBC plants are usually
used for BOD (biochemical oxygen demand) and
nitrogen removal from wastewater (Di Palma et al.,
2003; Teixeira et al., 2010).
A RBC is usually constructed as a single-stage
unit and it is usually used for lower influent loading
or for posttreatment. Few variables affect on RBC
efficiency such as loading rate, rotational speed,
hydraulic retention time, staging, temperature and
disc submergence (Di Palma et al., 2003). Rotational
speed of the disc is a parameter which affects oxygen
the critical points in the use of a RBC is the
estimation of aeration/oxygenation capacity during
the treatment. Various authors performed
experiments and provided physical oxygen transfer
data (Bintanja et al., 1975 Kim and Molof, 1982;
Zeevalkink et al., 1979).
Many papers investigated RBC systems for
wastewater treatment. Most research was done using
lab-scale model of RBC system. Tawfik et al. (2002)
compared the performance of one-stage and two-
stage RBCs, and investigated removal efficiency of
an organic load at different hydraulic retention time
(HRT). The wastewater had a pretreatment in UASB
reactor that provided the lower influent organic
loading rate. The removal efficiency of COD
increased at higher HRT and lower influent organic
loading rate. The most of COD is removed during the
first stage especially at a lower organic loading rate.
The obtained results indicated that a two-stage RBC
at an HRT of 10h represented an effective post-
treatment process. The overall nitrification efficiency


Author to whom all correspondence should be addressed: e-mail: dragan_cw8202@yahoo.com, Phone +381641246233
 Cvetkovic et al./Environmental Engineering and Management Journal 13 (2014), 3, 681-688
was 92% with ammonia loading of 1.1 g/m2d
(Tawfik et al., 2002). Hiras et al. (2004) investigated
characteristics of organic and nitrogen removal in
two-stage RBC. The RBC system consisted of two
separate RBC units, anoxic and aerobic unit. The
average removal efficiency of BOD5 (biochemical
oxygen demand), TSS (total suspend solids) and TN
were 86%, 63% and 54% respectively, so it can be
concluded that increase of hydraulic loading,
resulting from higher recirculation, have limited
negative effect on organic removal, but improved
nitrogen removal (Hiras et al., 2004). Yeh et al.
(1997) investigated the performance of anaerobic
rotating biological contactor (AnRBC) for the
treatment of high-strength synthetic wastewater
under different flow rates and influent organic
strengths. The removal efficiency of BOD increased
as the hydraulic retention time (HRT) increased or
the influent organic strength decreased. The overall
BOD removal efficiency ranged from 74% to 82% at
HRT of 32 h, and from 44% to 53% at HRT of 8 h.
The organic loading in influent was very strength and
ranged from 3248 mg COD/l to 12150 mg COD/l
(Yeh et al., 1997). Tawfik et al. (2005) conducted a
study about the performance of single-stage RBC
system, two-stage RBC system and UASB reactor
followed by a segmental two-stage aerobic RBC.
Influent was treated in UASB reactor. The single
stage RBC was operated at the constant HRT of 2.5h
and temperature of 21oC but with different OLRs
(organic loading rate).
The results clearly showed that residual value
of organic load and ammonia in the final effluent was
significantly lower at a lower imposed OLR of 10 g
COD/m2day. Also, the results showed that the COD
fractions and ammonia content in the final effluent of
a two stage RBC system were significantly lower
than the effluent of the single stage RBC system
(Tawfik et al., 2005). Surampalli and Bauman (1997)
reported a study conducted for the purpose of
evaluating the effect of supplemental aeration on the
performance of a RBC system in which the first and
the second stages were overloaded thus resulting in
low DO concentrations and heavy Beggiatoa growth.
The performance was evaluated in terms of
the total organic loading applied and removed. The
results of the study, where supplemental aeration was
used, showed that soluble COD and NH3–N removal
Fig. 1. RBC system, October 2011
682
efficiencies were improved, significantly higher
organic loading rates could be treated and Beggiatoa
growth were completely eliminated. Consequently,
these would lead to considerable cost saving in
design and construction of RBC units (Surampalli
and Bauman, 1997). Saikaly (2001) conducted a
more comprehensive study in which the effect of
variable HLRs, OLRs, and influent substrate
concentrations applied to a three-stage RBC system
operating in a step-feed mode were evaluated. It was
concluded that variation in the HLR had insignificant
effects on the overall COD and BOD but it was more
effective on NH3–N removals. It was also concluded
that at low OLR (COD of 1200 mg/L), the step-feed
system was more efficient in terms of NH3–N
removal; however, no differences were found in
COD and BOD removals. At high OLRs (>1200
mg/l) the step-feed system showed higher
efficiencies in the removal of NH3–N and COD and
higher stage DO concentrations were attained
(Saikaly, 2001).
The study reported by Neu (1992), showed
that recycling of secondary sludge to a pilot-scale
RBC resulted in several advantages, such as:
increased organic capacity, improved effluent quality
and significant reduction of nutrients (N and P)
without chemical addition, reduction of bacterial film
weight on the RBC discs. Under non-optimized
process conditions, at least a doubling of the
phosphorous content of the biomass was noted and
better settling and dewatering characteristics for the
effluent solids were obtained (Neu, 1992).
In this study, the performance of the RBC
system with supplemental aeration is investigated.
The investigated performances were observed
analyzing biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), total
suspend solids (TSS) and nitrogen contents.
Supplemental aeration was manually setup and it was
constant during operating cycle.
2. Material and methods
2.1. Rotating biological contactor (RBC)
The investigated RBC system built, by Tehnix
Company in 2005, is located in Metro Cash&Carry
Nis, Serbia (Fig. 1). The main components of RBC
system are shown in Fig. 2.
 Perfomance of single-stage rotating biological contactor with supplemental aeration

Fig. 2. Rotating biological disc (Technix Company, 2013)

1- Intake chamber with a grill for loading of solid mater, rags, wood, etc; 2 - Sand trap for collection of sand, gravel, ashes, etc; 3
- Pre-pump lifting station with installed double sludge pumps type Tehnix; 4 - Aeration pool with diffusers - water enrichment
with oxygen and ammonium extraction; 5 - Primary pool bio-mass dosing device of a rotating polypropylene rotor; 6 - Rotor
filled with polypropylene flow honeycomb blocks for biomass maintaining; 7 - Secondary sedimentation pool of aerobic
biological purified waste water; 8 - Pre-pump system for occasional return of active sludge for nitrification purposes; 9 -
Separation grill installed before water exit from BIOROTOR with MATALA filter; 10 - Recirculation and balancing valve of
circular process of aerobic water processing; 11 - Chamber for collection of waste water samples and access for extraction of
collected sludge; 12 - Electric control cabinet with automatic system for air suction

The RBC system is operating since November
9th, 2006. Wastewater supply system was gravity fed
with maximal loading rate of 5 l/s. The RBC system
is one-stage system consisted of anaerobic reactor and
additional aeration pool (Fig. 3). The working volume
of the covered anaerobic unit is 11 m3. The unit has
four disks (diameter of each disc is 210 cm) and five
rectangular blades (20 cm long) that are placed in disk
inter space to enhance mixing. The total biomass
support surface is 26.58 m2 and the disc is 40%
submerged (based on disc surface) and it rotates at 1
rpm in direction of the flow. The disc material was
made of polypropylene type 2H TKP-312. The
quantity of supplemental air was manually adjusted at
150 l/min and the aeration was performed on every 30
min. Duration of aeration was 30 min.
The operating process of the RBC system is
shown in Fig. 4. The process considers three sub-
processes: mechanical-physical processing, biological
breakdown and stabilization.

Fig. 3. Aeration pool and intake chamber, October 2011

Fig. 4. Purification process of rotating biological disc

683
 Cvetkovic et al./Environmental Engineering and Management Journal 13 (2014), 3, 681-688

2.2. Influent spectrophotometer model Varian Cary 50 probe. The

wastewater samples were characterized and the data
The measured hydraulic loading rate was in are given in Table 1.
the range between 1.43 l/s and 2.69 l/s. The maximal
measured values of the influent of COD, TSS, and Table 1. Loading conditions
NH4-N were 362 l/s, 324 l/s and 100 mg/l,
respectively. The pH values remained between 7.4 Parameters Unit Concentration
and 8.2. The measured wastewater temperature Hydraulic loading l/s 1.43 – 2.69
varied from 7 oC to 23.6 oC. pH 7.4 – 8.2
BOD5 mg/L 38 – 216.4
o
Temperature C 7 – 23.6
2.3. Sampling and analytic methods
Ammonium ion NH4 mg/L 4.84 – 100
All analytical procedures were performed Total suspend solids mg/L 153 – 324
according to Standard Methods (APHA, 1999). The TSS
samples were collected in a fridge at 4 ◦C.
Parameters like dissolved oxygen, pH and 3. Results and discussion
temperature were measured regularly in situ.
Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5) was measured The RBC system performance is depicted in
by the 5-day BOD test using the azide modification Fig. 5 to Fig. 8. During the period of four years
of the iodometric method for DO (dissolved oxygen) fifteen samples were used for the investigation of the
determination. Total suspended solids (TSS) were performance of the RBC system. Quantity of
measured by the gravimetric method. Ammonia supplemental air was manually set and it was
nitrogen (NH4–N) was determined using the constant during the operating cycles. The observed
volumetric method by titration after distillation of parameters that were used to investigate the
ammonia; the oxide of nitrogen (NO2–N and NO3–N) performance of RBC system were COD, TSS and
was measured by instrumental method using a nitrogen content (NH4, NO2, NO3).

400 80%
Influent Effluent Removal
350 70%
300 60%

Removal, %
250 50%
COD, mg/l

200 40%
150 30%
100 20%
50 10%
0 0%
Dec 2007

Dec 2009

Dec 2010
Oct 2009
Nov 2008
Feb 2007
May 2007

May 2008

Jun 2009

Jun 2010

Jun 2011
Jul 2007

Jul 2008

Mar 2009

Mar 2010

Mar 2011

Day of operation
a)
350 60%
Influent Effluent Removal
300 50%
250
40%
Removal, %
TSS, mg/l

200
30%
150
20%
100

50 10%

0 0%
Dec 2007

Dec 2009

Dec 2010
Oct 2009
Nov 2008
Feb 2007
May 2007

May 2008
Jul 2007

Jul 2008

Jun 2009

Jun 2010

Jun 2011
Mar 2009

Mar 2010

Mar 2011

Day of operation
b)

Fig 5. The variation and removal efficiency in the organic and solid content: a) variation and removal efficiency of COD; b)
variation and removal efficiency of TSS

684
 Perfomance of single-stage rotating biological contactor with supplemental aeration

In Fig. 5, the variation and removal efficiency removal efficiency of TSS concentration was 56% on
of organic loading is shown. The removal efficiency May 2008 (at influent concentration of 256 mg
of COD was in range of 23% to 71%. The highest TSS/l). The removal efficiency of TSS concentration
removal efficiency of COD concentration at organic was in the range of 32% and 56%.
loading rate of 16.98 g COD/m2d was 71%, measured The variation of nitrogen content removal
on the July 2007. For the highest organic loading rate efficiency in RBC unit is shown in the Fig. 6. The
of 19.33 g COD/m2d, removal efficiency of COD was content of ammonium ion NH4 varied a lot during
56%, measured on February 2007. The concentration operating period. The lowest concentration of NH4 in
of total suspend solid had the highest value on July influent was 0.93 mg NH4/L, and the highest was 100
2007 of about 324 mg TSS/L, and the highest mg NH4/L.

120 90%
Influent Effluent Removal 80%
Ammonium ion NH4, mg/l

100
70%
80 60%

Removal, %
50%
60
40%
40 30%
20%
20
10%
0 0%
Dec 2007

Dec 2009

Dec 2010
Oct 2009
Nov 2008
Feb 2007
May 2007

May 2008
Jul 2007

Jul 2008

Jun 2009

Jun 2010

Jun 2011
Mar 2009

Mar 2010

Mar 2011
Day of operation
a)
0.18 70%
Influent Effluent Removall
0.16 60%
0.14
50%
Nitrite NO 2 , mg/l

0.12

Removal, %
0.1 40%
0.08 30%
0.06
20%
0.04
0.02 10%

0 0%
Dec 2007

Dec 2009

Dec 2010
Oct 2009
Nov 2008
Feb 2007
May 2007

May 2008
Jul 2007

Jul 2008

Jun 2009

Jun 2010

Jun 2011
Mar 2009

Mar 2010

Mar 2011

Day of operation
b)
40 60%
Influent Effluent Removall
35
50%
30
Nitrate NO3 , mg/l

40%
Removal, %

25
20 30%
15
20%
10
10%
5
0 0%
Dec 2007

Dec 2009

Dec 2010
Oct 2009
Feb 2007

Nov 2008
May 2007

May 2008
Jul 2007

Jul 2008

Jun 2009

Jun 2010

Jun 2011
Mar 2009

Mar 2010

Mar 2011

Day of operation
c)

Fig. 6. The variation of nitrogen content and removal efficiency: a) variation and removal of ammonium ion; b) variation and
removal of nitrite; c) variation and removal of nitrate

685
 Cvetkovic et al./Environmental Engineering and Management Journal 13 (2014), 3, 681-688

The RBC unit was working with removal However, using supplemental aeration, the
efficiency of NH4 in the range from 22% to 83%. The greater efficiency of organic and nitrogen content
effluent NO2 and NO3 concentration varied between removal can be achieved. In addition, the analysis of
0.015-0.1 mg/l and 0.1-24.2 mg/L, respectively. wastewater shows that influent in RBC system is low
Nitrification efficiency was in the range between 18- strength. During 2007, concentration of COD was
60% and denitrification was in the range 13-52%. The slightly higher probably because of the fact that
effect of the loading rate (in terms of COD or NH4) technological process was not monitored in trade
on the RBC system performance (as indicated by the center (increased quantity of detergent, oils, synthetic
corresponding removal rates) is presented in Fig. 7. material etc.). In the next three years, the
The values were calculated based on feed wastewater concentration of COD was significantly lower as
characteristics and removal rate. consequence of technological process monitoring.
The relationships between organic and From literature review, it can be concluded that
nitrogen loading and removal were statistically removal efficiency of COD in RBC can be very high.
significant and those relationships can be used to Gupta and Gupta (2001) achieved COD removal of
design the RBC systems. Fig. 8 shows the influence 90% in strength wastewater (1000 mgCOD/L).
of temperature on removal process of nitrogen and Tawfik et al. (2002) achieved the removal efficiency
organic content. A measurement results show that the of 75% after first stage and 80 % after second stage.
higher rate of removal efficiency of organic and In this paper, the investigated RBC system is
nitrogen content were at the higher temperature (May achieved removal efficiency of 84% in May 2007.
2007, Jul 2007, and Jun 2011). The higher COD removal rates with
supplemental air could be attributed to higher
4. Discussion dissolved oxygen levels. The TSS removal efficiency
of 56% was achieved which is slightly lower in
RBC systems are usually used for pretreatment comparison with the data from (Hiras et al., 2004)
process or for treatment of lower strength wastewater. where the TSS removal efficiency was 63%.

14 5
5
12
4
NH4 removal rate, g/m2d
COD removal rate, g/m2 d

10 4
3
8
y = 0.785x ‐ 4.269 y = 0.801x ‐ 0.446
3
R² = 0.633 R² = 0.925
6 2

4 2
1
2
1

0 0
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 0 1 2 3 4 5
COD loading rate, g/m2 d NH4 loading rate, g/m2d

a) b)

Fig. 7. COD and NH4 removal rates vs. corresponding loadings: a) COD removal rates vs corresponding loadings;
b) NH4 removal rates vs corresponding loadings

Temperature Nitrite NO2 Nitrate NO3 Amomnium ion NH4 COD

30 100%
90%
25
80%
70%
Temperature, oC

20
Removal, %

60%
15 50%
40%
10
30%
20%
5
10%
0 0%
Dec 2007

Dec 2009

Dec 2010
Oct 2009
Nov 2008
Feb 2007

May 2007

May 2008
Jul 2007

Jul 2008

Mar 2009

Jun 2009

Mar 2010

Jun 2010

Mar 2011

Jun 2011

Jul 2011

Day of operation

Fig. 8. The influence of temperature on removal efficiency of RBC

686
 Perfomance of single-stage rotating biological contactor with supplemental aeration
Slightly lower removal efficiency of TSS may
be the consequence of higher loading rate or low
recirculation of sludge.
In conventional single stage RBC systems
(without additional aeration) very small nitrification
is present. This is due to an insufficient NH4-N
oxidiser population at high COD loading rate, as they
cannot compete with heterotrophs for space and
oxygen. This deficiency is usually eliminated by
introducing one more RBC unit. The examples in
relevant literature showed how authors tried to solve
problem of nitrogen removal efficiency at a single-
stage RBC system using the multi-stage RBC system.
Using a 3-stage RBC 60% nitrification in strength
wastewater was achieved (500-700 mg/l of nitrate)
(Gupta and Gupta, 2001). Tawfik et al. (2002)
presented high nitrification rate of 0.97 g NH4/m2d
(92%) for the two-stage RBC at an imposed
ammonia loading rate of 1.07 g NH4/m2d and COD
loading rate of 6.45 g COD /m2d. This nitrification
efficiency is slightly higher than one obtained by
Cheung (1981), for an RBC system treating diluted
domestic wastewater at an organic loading rate of 8.0
g COD/m2d.
The results of the present study showed that
when the OLR increased from 13.7 g COD/m2d to
21.0 g COD/m2d the nitrification rate decreased from
1.45 g NH4/m2d to 0.6 g NH4/m2d for ammonia
loading rates of 1.98 g NH4 /m2d and 3.1 g NH4 /m2d.
According to the observations of Boongorsrang et al.
(1982) the COD loading rate should not exceed 2.54
g/m2d in order to enable nitrification occur in single-
stage RBC contactor without supplemental aeration.
In an investigation conducted by Tawfik et al. (2005)
at influent concentration of 42 mg NH4/L nitrification
rate of 14% was achieved with single-stage RBC and
30% with two-stage RBC system. In the present
investigation, in July 2007, a higher nitrification rate
of 4.43 g NH4/m2d (83%) was found for the single-
stage RBC with additional aeration at an imposed
ammonia loading rate of 5.34 g NH4/m2d and COD
loading rate of 16.98 g COD/m2d. The high
nitrification rate at a significantly higher load of
COD and NH4 can be attributed to additional
aeration.
RBC performance was evaluated based on
total initial organic loading and removed organic
loading, since there is a strong relationship between
the variables. It was observed that removal rates and
process efficiency were indeed dependent on the total
organics load applied to the RBCs rather than on its
concentration or wastewater flow rate. The NH4 data
show a high degree of dependence (correlation
coefficient of 0.925). However, the COD data do not
exhibit similar behavior (correlation coefficient of
0.633). However, there is a non significant difference
in the slopes of the linear relationships obtained for
nitrogen and organic removal rate.
The calculated slopes were 0.785 and 0.801
for COD and NH4, respectively. For the two-stage
RBC, Hiras et al. (2004), obtained series of
correlation dependence of the total nitrogen content
of 0.4608, and slope of the linear relationships of
0.5633. For the three-stage RBC system, Surampalli
and Baumann (1997), obtained slopes of 0.909 when
used supplemental aeration and 0.707 for RBC
system without supplemental aeration. Several
authors (Chesner and Iannone, 1978; USEPA, 1984)
have suggested the use of total organic loading
concepts to determine the required surface area for
RBC design and to predict process performance.
However, the high value of correlation coefficient
and slope of the linear relationships for NH4 indicates
a high efficiency of the RBC system. Lower values
for COD may be due to downtime of the system, i.e.
the influence of the sludge in the reactor.
Figure 8 shows the influence of temperature
on removal process of nitrogen and organic content.
However, due to variations of load of organic and
nitrogen content at the different measurement results,
and lack of measurements at a lower temperature
(around 0 degrees) it is not possible to conduct an
accurate analysis of the influence of temperature on
removal process. Also, because of the time that
passed between two measurements, significant
variations of the condition of bacteria growth can
occur.
5. Conclusions
The single-stage rotating biological contactor
with supplemental aeration obtained a successful
result in wastewater treatment. The RBC system
worked with low strength wastewater in the range
from 38 mg COD/l to 362 mg COD/L, with the
exception that after the first year of operation, the
concentration stabilized at around 250 mg COD/l. A
71% COD removal efficiency was achieved, for
significantly higher OLR of 16.98 g COD/m2d. Also,
removal rate of NH4 had exceeded expectations in
relation to the recommendations for system without
supplemental aeration. For high nitrogen loading of
5.34 g NH4/m2d, the high nitrification rate of 60%
and denitrification rate of 52% for single-stage RBC
were achieved. The relationships between organic
loading and removal were statistically significant and
those relationships can be used to design the RBC
systems.
Finally, this research shows that using the
single-stage RBC with additional aeration nitrogen
removal efficiency can be achieved as a two-stage
RBC system. Also, at a higher OLR, single-stage
RBC with additional aeration achieved similar
organic removal efficiency as a classical RBC system
(without additional aeration) at significantly lower
OLR.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge Metro Cash&Carry
doo in Serbia and Tehnix Company for their full
cooperation. Also this paper is a result of the TR33015
project of Tehnological Development of Republic of
Serbia.
687
 Cvetkovic et al./Environmental Engineering and Management Journal 13 (2014), 3, 681-688
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