Microscopy and Molecular Methods to Advance Performance and Design of Hybrid Biofilm Technology

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The need to develop new technologies that meet the wastewater treatment challenges of today has led to the design of innovative hybrid wastewater treatment technologies. The hybrid moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR) and biological aerated filter (BAF) technology has been conceived to combine the advantages of the MBBR with an upflow BAF technology into a single hybrid system. In particular, the hybrid MBBR-BAF has been conceived to separate the heterotrophic population that consumes the readily degradable influent carbon from the autotrophic, ammonia removal population. Further, the hybrid system has also been conceived to mitigate the adverse effects of excessive heterotrophic growth on BAF media. The scientific approach of this research program is to isolate the impact of critical operational and design parameters on not only the performance of the system but also on the characteristics of the biofilm and the microbial communities on the dual media of the MBBR-BAF hybrid technology. The proposed research program will use advanced microscopy and molecular methods to develop a thorough understanding of the biofilm and microbial population distribution in the MBBR-BAF technology and subsequently use this information to optimize the technology to meet the wastewater treatment needs of Canada. The research program is comprised of three phases: phase I will compare the system performance, biofilm characteristics and microbial communities of the hybrid MBBR-BAF and a conventional upflow BAF system across typical Canadian summer, winter and snow melt operational conditions; phase II will compare the system performance, biofilm characteristics and microbial communities of the hybrid MBBR-BAF and a conventional upflow BAF across various carbon, ammonia and solids loadings and velocity rise rates and subsequently optimize the design loading rates and velocity rise rates of the hybrid system; and phase III will investigate the effects of the percentage of MBBR carriers versus BAF media along with the effects of MBBR carrier mixing intensity on the performance, biofilm characteristics and microbial communities of the hybrid system and subsequently optimize the composition of media and MBBR carrier motion of the system. The anticipated impact of the research program is the optimization of a new wastewater treatment technology that is conceptualized to meet the current challenges facing wastewater treatment and the preservation of water quality in Canada and the world.