TY - JOUR
T1 - Determination of the hydraulic residence time in a trickling biofilter filled with organic matter
AU - Garzón-Zúñiga, M. A.
AU - Lessard, P.
AU - Garzón-Zúñiga, M. A.
AU - Buelna, G.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was made possible through the financial support of the CRIQ Environmental Department (Canada), Laval University (Canada), the Quebec Ministry of Education (Canada), and the Mexican National Council for Science and Technology (Mexico).
PY - 2003/5/1
Y1 - 2003/5/1
N2 - Biofiltration process using peat as media has been shown to be efficient for the treatment of agroindustrial, chemical, and municipal effluents. However, determining the hydraulic retention time of this process is difficult due to many factors. Generally tracer techniques are used, but they measure the molecular retention time instead of the hydraulic retention time; and depending on the case, the results can be wrong. In order to contribute to solving this problem, the objective of this research was to find a trustworthy and adequate technique to determine the hydraulic retention time for a process using a very adsorbent filter bed material (peat). An overview of the hydraulic behaviour of a peat bed filter related to their particular structural composition is presented. Then, based on these characteristics, two different techniques to determine the hydraulic retention time were developed and tested. The first, an indirect modified tracing technique and, the second, a direct one which determines the volume of liquid in treatment into the filter bed through the establishment of a relation between the volume of porosity and the volume of empty spaces (or not occupied by liquid) into the filter bed. The results obtained showed that the proposed techniques gave similar results and proved adequate.
AB - Biofiltration process using peat as media has been shown to be efficient for the treatment of agroindustrial, chemical, and municipal effluents. However, determining the hydraulic retention time of this process is difficult due to many factors. Generally tracer techniques are used, but they measure the molecular retention time instead of the hydraulic retention time; and depending on the case, the results can be wrong. In order to contribute to solving this problem, the objective of this research was to find a trustworthy and adequate technique to determine the hydraulic retention time for a process using a very adsorbent filter bed material (peat). An overview of the hydraulic behaviour of a peat bed filter related to their particular structural composition is presented. Then, based on these characteristics, two different techniques to determine the hydraulic retention time were developed and tested. The first, an indirect modified tracing technique and, the second, a direct one which determines the volume of liquid in treatment into the filter bed through the establishment of a relation between the volume of porosity and the volume of empty spaces (or not occupied by liquid) into the filter bed. The results obtained showed that the proposed techniques gave similar results and proved adequate.
KW - Hydraulic residence time
KW - Molecular residence time
KW - Peat biofiltration
KW - Porosity
KW - Tracer studies
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=17744412414&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/09593330309385595
DO - 10.1080/09593330309385595
M3 - Artículo
SN - 0959-3330
VL - 24
SP - 605
EP - 614
JO - Environmental Technology (United Kingdom)
JF - Environmental Technology (United Kingdom)
IS - 5
ER -