36 Feature

Filtration+Separation September/October 2017

Research & development

Biological water
treatment: MBBR
& IFAS technology
he design and engineering of MBBR & IFAS wastewater
T treatment plants is full of obstacles and mistakes can be
hard to remedy. This article explains the steps that should
be taken by qualified biotechnologists to implement
MBBR and IFAS systems.

The term MBBR is the abbreviation of
moving bed biofilm reactor, while IFAS
stands for integrated fixed film activated
sludge system. At a first glance, this
seems to be a simple concept: a reaction
tank is filled with a plastic-made carrier
which is mixed in water or in a water/
sludge mixture, respectively. The differ-
ence between IFAS and MBBR is that in
the IFAS system, the activated sludge
from the sludge recirculation is addition-
ally used, which means that the combi-
nation of activated sludge and
carrier-fixed biofilms is used in the same
reaction tank volume.
Important factors
Initially, the complete task to be
performed in the project should be
specified. Apart from the space condi-
tions and requirements on site, a
detailed examination of the wastewater
influent parameters and of the treated
effluent quality is required.
The size of the MBBR/IFAS tanks and the
related carrier media filling rate are
determined based on the pollutant loads
and in consideration of specific product
factors of the carrier media. Here, the
loads are calculated from the flow rate
(m3/h or m3/d) and the respective
pollutant concentrations, e.g. COD (mg/l).
Crucial factors for the dimensioning of
MBBR/IFAS plants are: the wastewater
temperature at the design point; the
yield; and product specific removal rates
(removal efficiency) of the carrier media
chosen.
Why is the water temperature
relevant?
For the design calculation as well as for
the comparison of techno-commercial
design proposals offered by different

Figure 1: Moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR) technology. Figure 2: The integrated fixed film activated sludge (IFAS) system.

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 Feature 37
Filtration+Separation September/October 2017

Figure 3: Example of a conventional hollow-body carrier. Figure 4: The Mutag BioChip blue is a porous chip-type carrier
made of foamed PE material.

suppliers, a detailed consideration of the
water temperature in the MBBR/IFAS is
highly essential. An incorrect assumption
of the water design temperature will
have detrimental results.
If the design temperature is considered
to be high, e.g. 35°c, a high biological
removal rate will be considered in the
calculation and the carrier media require-
ment and reaction tank volume will be
low. During normal plant operation, the
temperature will be lower, for example,
25°c. At this temperature, the reaction
tank volume and the quantity of carrier
media will not be sufficient for
complying with the discharge require-
ments. This means that further media
will have to be added but this may not
be possible because the admissible
maximum media filling rate is between
50–70%.
If the design temperature used for the
calculation is considered to be low, for
example, 10°c, the tank size as well as
the carrier media quantity will be corre-
spondingly larger, although the water
temperature will most likely be higher in
practice than assumed for the calculation.

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38 Feature
Larger tank volumes with higher carrier
media fills are not necessarily a bad
thing in terms of the biological aspects,
but they will unnecessarily increase the
investment costs.
In order to obtain the appropriate design
for your MBBR/IFAS plants, it is necessary
to determine the minimum and
maximum design temperatures and to
simultaneously make sure that these
values have been taken into
consideration.
The real requirements are often not
taken into consideration by the bidder.
In the case of missing data, it can
happens that assumptions are made by
the bidder in his/her own favour, without
having explicitly asked the customer to
provide the missing data. For this reason,
it is very important to carefully review
and compare any design proposals.
If there should be the need to specify the
oxygen requirement for designing the
aeration system, one should keep in mind
that the higher one of the two water
design temperature values is used for this
purpose. The reason for this is that the
oxygen dissolubility in warm water is
worse than in lower temperature ranges.
The following general rule
applies:
• The lower temperature is considered
for calculating the required tank and
carrier media volume.
• The higher temperature is considered
for the calculation of the oxygen supply.
Why does the yield matter?
When designing MBBR/IFAS systems, the
yield is another essential factor which
impacts the tank size/carrier media
volume and the oxygen supply. The
yield is used for considering the biomass
growth in the calculation; it is an ‘empir-
ical value’ obtained in pilot trials and
reference plants. It differs depending on
the individual origin of the wastewater.
A wrongly selected yield figure can be
the reason for inaccurate dimensioning
of MBBR/IFAS plants.
What is the reason for
determining removal rates?
As mentioned above, the carriers
substantially contribute to the pollutant
removal (i.e. degradation of the waste-
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water pollutant load) in MBBR/IFAS
plants and are therefore essential for
optimal performance. The removal rates
required for designing MBBR/IFAS plants
are the measuring unit of the ‘removal
Making assumptions or estimations
will not be beneficial when designing
a water treatment plant.
efficiency’. Generally, the carrier media
supplier must know the removal effi-
ciency of his/her carrier media; other-
wise he/she transfers all risks to his/her
customers. Removal rates result from
many years of operational experience
with the product carrier, obtained from
large-scale plants, pilot trials or lab-scale
studies. Individual and project-specific
factors such as the origin of the waste-
water, specific wastewater characteris-
tics, water temperature, and nutrient &
oxygen supply have a significant impact
on the removal performance. Providing
general (i.e. global) removal rates is as
irresponsible as copying them from
other carrier types.
With regard to this, further differentia-
tions should be made. Certain types of
hollow-body carriers have been used in
MBBR/IFAS plants for several decades,
and their relating removal rates are avail-
able from publications. Due to various
disadvantages of these hollow-bodies,
further research has been performed
within the last ten years, resulting in a
porous chip-type carrier made of foamed
PE material.
During the years of product development
and optimization, the technological
market leader and carrier media manufac-
turer Multi Umwelttechnologie AG
(Mutag) made huge efforts in the
process-technological application in many
different types of wastewaters as well as
fields of application, in order to provide
reliable statements in terms of the
removal efficiency of this special product.
If hollow-body carriers are applied, then
the microorganisms immobilize on the
carrier surface until they are sheared off.
This fact allows for a comparison possi-
bility of the theoretically determined
surface area. This is the reason for the
surface area comparison of different
product shapes and manufacturers.
Filtration+Separation September/October 2017
A surface area comparison with a pore
system foamed carrier will be meaningful
only in a conditional way or not at all,
which is due to the fact that the removal
efficiency depends on the concentration
of active biomass under the specific
process conditions, as explained above.
A comparison of the surface areas for
evaluating the removal efficiency is
possible only after conducting long-
term comparative tests under exactly
the same process conditions for the
specific wastewater. If the chip from
2008 with its pore system would have
provided the same performance, it would
surely not have become necessary to
optimize the product to the Mutag
BioChip blue which has an average
diameter of 25 mm.
Conclusion
It is not the surface area of the porous
chips which is crucial for the removal
efficiency but the quantity of biomass
which can be immobilized per volu-
metric unit of carriers. There are
dramatic differences in terms of the
removal capacity when looking at pore
systems, and a pure comparison of the
surface areas may result in dire conse-
quences with regard to the conceptual
plant design. In order to minimize the
risks of an inaccurate plant dimen-
sioning, the removal performance of
porous carriers used in the specific type
of wastewater to be treated has to be
proven on a binding basis. The bidder/
plastic material supplier must also
possess the knowledge of the real
performance data of the finally chosen
carrier type in the specific case of appli-
cation. Making assumptions or estima-
tions will not be beneficial when
designing a water treatment plant and
neither will a simple comparison of the
carrier surface area.
www.mutag.de/en/startpage
Authors:
Christian Börner, René Trübenbach