Buffer Effects in Submersed Denitrifying Biofilter

The high content of nitrates in drinking water leads to serious diseases. The creation of biofiltering devices with the longest time of their operation between preventive flushes is extremely important. The purpose of this study was to investigate the features of the functioning of the developed U-shaped submersible denitrifying biofilter during its long-term operation in the piston filtration mode. The denitrification of water by using the method of displacement (piston) biofiltration in a submersible small U-shaped biofilter with immovable carriers of attached microflora in its filter load was studied. As a result, clogging of the pore space of the biofilter in the zone of excess bacterial nutrition is prevented and the vital activity of bacteria is maintained in places where there is no nutrient substrate. It has been shown that, due to adaptive mechanisms, denitrifying bacteria convert nitrate ions into gaseous nitrogen, consuming extracellular polymeric substances. The rate constants of the reaction of reduction of nitrates to molecular nitrogen in different zones of the biofilter under different filtration modes were determined. The activity of the microflora inside the biofilter quickly returns to its original level when a full-fledged external nutrition is resumed. The efficiency of nitrate to nitrogen conversion in the studied biofilter is 94.2±8.9%.