Water and Wastewater.com Help Forums - Trickling Fliter Loadings

A Beak

Junior Member

Offline

I love Water and
Wastewater.com

Posts: 80

Company or Organization: City of Biddeford WWTP

Trickling Fliter Loadings
Jan 03^rd, 2012, 12:08pm

Hello. I am wondering if anyone knows of any textbook minimum loading numbers for a "roughing" trickling filter. I think I am looking for gpd/ft3 but lbs/ft3 could be useful as well. Out plant has a two stage biological process that consists of the roughing filter followed by 2 diffused air ABs. I feel confident that even without the filter we would get adaquate treatment from just the AB's and i have slowly been diverting flow away from the RF to conserve energy. I am worried that the growth in the filter will dry out and cause odor/operational issues. Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks

Alex

Back to top

IP Logged

biogataw YaBB Newbies Offline expert for biotrickling filter systems Posts: 15 Gender: Company or Organization: CaseTech GmbH	Re: Trickling Fliter Loadings Reply #1 - Jan 3^rd, 2012, 1:05pm Hello Alex, we have a biotrickling filter treated H2S air! We used an inert plastic packing. To give you an idea for the level of a low water sprinkling rate, in our developmental period we drive our test plant with 1,2 m³/m²(BTF-column)/d! BR biogataw
Back to top	IP Logged

A Beak Junior Member Offline I love Water and Wastewater.com Posts: 80 Company or Organization: City of Biddeford WWTP	Re: Trickling Fliter Loadings Reply #2 - Jan 3^rd, 2012, 1:53pm Thanks! To be more specific, our typical daily flow is around 2.5-3.0 MGD and our trickling fliter is 60 ft in diameter with 18 feet of media.
Back to top	IP Logged

biogataw YaBB Newbies Offline expert for biotrickling filter systems Posts: 15 Gender: Company or Organization: CaseTech GmbH	Re: Trickling Fliter Loadings Reply #3 - Jan 3^rd, 2012, 2:21pm Hello Alex, I understand that you BTF diameter is 60 ft (18,3 m) and the packing height is 18 ft (5,5m) and the flow rate is 2,5 to 3,0 MGD (ca. 9,5 m³/h)! Do you need the biotrickling filter for cleaning waste water or waste gas? BR biogataw
Back to top	IP Logged

Jeff Naumann

God Member

Offline

I love Water and
Wastewater.com

Posts: 1133
Torrance, California
Gender: male

Company or Organization: Jeff Naumann & Associates

Re: Trickling Fliter Loadings
Reply #4 - Jan 3^rd, 2012, 2:22pm

Check out page 3 of the following EPA Fact Sheet:

http://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyNET.exe/P10099PA.TXT?ZyActionD=ZyDocument&Client=EPA&Index=2000+Thru+2005&Docs=&Query=&Time=&EndTime=&SearchMethod=1&TocRestrict=n&Toc=&TocEntry=&QField=&QFieldYear=&QFieldMonth=&QFieldDay=&IntQFieldOp=0&ExtQFieldOp=0&XmlQuery=&File=D%3A%5Czyfiles%5CIndex%20Data%5C00thru05%5CTxt%5C00000025%5CP10099PA.txt&User=ANONYMOUS&Password=anonymous&SortMethod=h%7C-&MaximumDocuments=1&FuzzyDegree=0&ImageQuality=r75g8/r75g8/x150y150g16/i425&Display=p%7Cf&DefSeekPage=x&SearchBack=ZyActionL&Back=ZyActionS&BackDesc=Results%20page&MaximumPages=1&ZyEntry=1&SeekPage=x&ZyPURL

Back to top

IP Logged

A Beak Junior Member Offline I love Water and Wastewater.com Posts: 80 Company or Organization: City of Biddeford WWTP	Re: Trickling Fliter Loadings Reply #5 - Jan 4^th, 2012, 9:03am It is for wastewater.
Back to top	IP Logged

biogataw YaBB Newbies Offline expert for biotrickling filter systems Posts: 15 Gender: Company or Organization: CaseTech GmbH	Re: Trickling Fliter Loadings Reply #6 - Jan 4^th, 2012, 10:01am Hallo Alex, I ´ve 18 years operation experience with waste gas! BR biogataw
Back to top	IP Logged

The sludge judge God Member Offline Posts: 649 Wisconsin Gender: Company or Organization: private	Re: Trickling Fliter Loadings Reply #7 - Jan 4^th, 2012, 2:29pm A roughing filter would be designed for 100-300 lb BOD/d/1000 cu ft/day. High rate media (used in roughing filters) should have a minimum wetting rate of 0.7 gpm/sq foot. reference WEF manual of practice 11 Volume II: liquid processes hope this helps, Ryan
Back to top	IP Logged

biogataw YaBB Newbies Offline expert for biotrickling filter systems Posts: 15 Gender: Company or Organization: CaseTech GmbH	Re: Trickling Fliter Loadings Reply #8 - Jan 4^th, 2012, 3:05pm Hello together, it looks so, that the limits for BTF´s in waste water and waste gas systems the same! waste water: 0,70 gpm/ft² = 1,7 m³ / (m²h) waste gas: 0,49 gpm/ft² = 1,2 m³ / (m²h) BR biogataw
Back to top	IP Logged

A Beak Junior Member Offline I love Water and Wastewater.com Posts: 80 Company or Organization: City of Biddeford WWTP	Re: Trickling Fliter Loadings Reply #9 - Jan 5^th, 2012, 7:14am Thanks for the good info. What about temporarily taking the tower offline? How long can it stand with no flow before we would start having issues? I don't know if this makes a difference but it is currently around -6 degrees C outside.
Back to top	IP Logged

Eric Raj God Member Offline As long as it flows, I'll treat it! Posts: 518 Gender: Company or Organization: City of Bedford	Re: Trickling Fliter Loadings Reply #10 - Jan 5^th, 2012, 8:48am At those low temps odor will not be a problem initially. You really need to check daily on whether or not odors are beginning to arise. AB's use more energy than TF's, so I would look to run the TF as efficiently as possible in order to limit how much air must be applied to the AB's. ~Eric
Back to top	IP Logged

A Beak

Junior Member

Offline

I love Water and
Wastewater.com

Posts: 80

Company or Organization: City of Biddeford WWTP

Re: Trickling Fliter Loadings
Reply #11 - Jan 5^th, 2012, 10:08am

Energy consumption is the main reason i want to take it offline for a few days to see if it does save energy. Right now we are using between 2 and 4 75 hp pumps to feed the tower and we have a 50 hp and a 75 hp high efficency turbo blower. I realize that taking the tower offline would cause the blowers to run faster and would consume more energy. Right now the the 50 hp blower runs at its minimum speed almost all the time and we still have a final DO of about 3 ppm. What i am currious about is if the super efficient blower at a higher speed will consume more than running the old biofilter pumps pumping all the flow to the top of our tower. Is there anyway to estimate any of this without actually having to make such a drastic change?
Also on an unreated topic: Does this forum have a built in spell check by any chance? I am pretty much mentaly impared when it comes to spelling.

Back to top

IP Logged

Eric Raj

God Member

Offline

As long as it flows,
I'll treat it!

Posts: 518

Gender: male

Company or Organization: City of Bedford

Re: Trickling Fliter Loadings
Reply #12 - Jan 5^th, 2012, 11:39am

To a rough extent you can estimate through some calculations what your electric usage is. But you ought to measure the load on the blower in realtime under the conditions which you wish to know about. Age of blower and other components in the system all will affect electrical usage.

Sadly, I have not found any spell check option on this site.

~Eric

Back to top

IP Logged

A Beak

Junior Member

Offline

I love Water and
Wastewater.com

Posts: 80

Company or Organization: City of Biddeford WWTP

Re: Trickling Fliter Loadings
Reply #13 - Jan 10^th, 2012, 1:30pm

Thanks again for the responses. Right now we are operating with no recyle at all gonig through the tower. That is saving us from pumping roughly 3 mgd. Measuring soluable BOD going in and out of the tower i am getting 55 ppm going in and 8 going out. Settleability is still good and our effluent quality has not changed at all. This is saving us between 10 and 20 KW/day even with the blower running at a faster speed. The thing that i am worried about now is the distribution over the media. The distribution system is powered by the flow out of the arms. When the pump speed gets too low the arms stop moving. This only seems to happen for a few hours in the early morning when flow is at its lowest. Can this poor distribution cause us any problems with the growth on the tower? Thanks

Alex

Back to top

IP Logged

alexisrois YaBB Newbies Offline I love Water and Wastewater.com Posts: 10 Gender: Company or Organization: alexisrois co.	Re: Trickling Fliter Loadings Reply #14 - Feb 15^th, 2012, 6:45am With appropriate loadings the low-rate trickling filter, such as main and additional sedimentation models, should remove from 80% to 85% of the used BOD. While there is some unloading or sloughing of solids at all times, the significant unloadings usually happen several times a year for relatively short intervals.
Back to top	Vertical Turbine Pump IP Logged