Upgrading the effluent quality of an aerated lagoon with horizontal roughing filtration

Abstract

Removal of suspended solids and microorganisms from an aerated lagoon effluent with a horizontal roughing filter (HRF) was investigated. The aerated lagoon receives Qom municipal wastewater. The HRF was operated at three filtration rates of 0.5,1.0 and 1.5 m3/(m2·h) during four month operation period. The measured values of turbidity, TSS, COD, pH, temperature and flow rate of HRF at the former filtration rate were 79±12 NTU, 100±11 mg/dm3, 190±12 mg/dm3, 7±0.1 °C, 17±8 °C and 0.82 dm3/min, respectively. The differences between inlet and outlet values of pH and temperature were not significant (P > 0.05). Measures turbidity, TSS and COD in HRF final effluent were 15±13.7 NTU, 37±295 mg/dm3,64±39.7 mg/dm3, respectively, which corresponds to 81.1, 63 and 66.3 removal efficiencies, respectively. A decrease of removal efficiency was observed upon increasing filtration rates. The Spearman correlation coefficients between the head-loss and removal efficiencies ranged from 0.578 to 0.968 pointing to a direct relationship. Results of modeling approach revealed appropriate compliance between the values of the observed and predicted TSS for higher filtration rates.