Water Practice & Technology Vol 1 No 3 IWA Publishing 2006 doi: 10.2166/WPT.

2006050

Compressible synthetic dual-medium filtration of
wastewater effluents for water reuse
S.K. Maeng*, K.H. Ahn*, K.P. Kim*, K.G. Song* and K.Y. Park**
* Water and environment & remediation research center, Korea Institute of Science and
Technology, P.O. BOX 131, Cheongryang, Seoul, 130-650, Korea (E-mail:
smaeng@kist.re.kr; khahn@kist.re.kr, kgsong@kist.re.kr)
**Dept. of Civil and Environmental System Engineering, Kunkuk University Hwayang-dong 1,
GwangJin-gu, Seoul, 143-701, Korea (E-mail: kypark@konkuk.re.kr)
Abstract A novel filtration process using compressible synthetic dual-medium filter was
investigated for wastewater effluents reclamation. In synthetic medium filtration system, the
fluid to be filtered flows through the media as opposed to flowing around the filtering media as
in granular media filters. Three types of open porous polyurethane foams with different
densities and pore sizes were tested to determine their performances with respect to the
removal of turbidity and total suspended solids. Media with smaller porosity showed higher
removal efficiency in both turbidity and total suspended solids. Second, single- and dual-
medium synthetic filters were compared to evaluate their feasibilities of treating wastewater
effluents for water reuse applications and determined the optimum range to meet water reuse
standard of the turbidity (i.e., turbidity <2 NTU). To meet water reuse standards (i.e., turbidity
<2 NTU) in this study, single- and dual-synthetic medium filters will need to operate at
compression ratios of 30 (<333 L/m
2
min) and 50% (<500 L/m
2
min), respectively. The
removal efficiency of turbidity was slightly increased with the increase in compression ratios,
and the total suspended solids removal was more affected by the filtration rates than that of
turbidity in the synthetic medium filtration.
Keywords Dual-Medium filter, High-Rate Filtration, Wastewater Effluents, Synthetic Media
Filter, Water Reuse
Introduction
Water shortage and conservation have become major issue due to population explosion,
uncontrolled use, inefficient management and pollution. The demand of water supply is
continuously increasing for agriculture irrigation, industry and urban consumption. Water
recycling has emerged as a practical solution to overcome the limitation of water resources
and it could be provided very effective measures to protect and save water resources.
In Korea, sewage treatment plants treated 64 million tons of wastewater in 2003 and only
5.4 % out of that effluent was used for water reuse. The Ministry of Environment reported in
2003 that wastewater effluents reclamation should be increased to more than 10% to meet
the demand of water supply in urban areas (Park et al. 2005). Ministry of environment has
been trying to put a lot of efforts to have a water reuse system as an integral part of existing
and planned buildings and soon the regulation will be established to have a wastewater reuse
system. In contrast to the water reuse in buildings as supplemental in-building water
resources, sewage treatment plants with tertiary treatment could produce a huge volume of
secondary effluents which could be used in many purposes. Therefore, the wastewater
effluents reuse from municipal treatment plant has the potential to be a key process to save
water resources and protect environments.
Compressible synthetic dual-medium filtration of wastewater effluents for water reuse

National status for water reuse was established in 1998 for four different purposes of use:
agriculture irrigation, landscape irrigation, toilet flushing, and other non-potable including
car washing and building maintenance. Most criteria can be met with current conventional
activated sludge process for use of wastewater effluents in agriculture irrigation and
landscape irrigation (Park et al. 2005). However, the turbidity values in the secondary
effluents are normally higher than 2 NTU, whereas it is set to be less than 2 NTU in water
reuse standards. Therefore, it is necessary to have a tertiary treatment processes such as a
sand filter in order to reuse wastewater effluents. Sand and anthracite are most commonly
used as filter medium (AWWA and ASCE 1990). However, sand filtration put some
restrictions on its operation in treating secondary effluents during the summer time because
the algae growth on the weir of secondary sedimentation tank allows clogging in the sand
filtration. A single synthetic medium filter (a form of polyvaniladene) has been proven to be
one of the processes enables successfully reject in the wide range of suspended solids (SS)
and turbidity from wastewater effluent (Caliskaner et al. 1999, Jimenez et al. 2000).
Permeable synthetic filter media which made of polyurethane also enables higher filtration
rates, smaller filtration units and longer filter runs (Gimbel et al. 2002). It is able to filter six
times higher than those of sand filters (Tchobanoglous and Caliskaner 1997). However, none
of the study has been shown using dual-medium synthetic filter (a form of polyurethane with
different density and pore sizes) to evaluate its feasibility on treating wastewater effluents. In
single-medium synthetic filtration, most of the removal showed in the upper few millimetre
of the bed (Tchobanoglous and Eliassen 1970). Like conventional dual-medium filters (Sand
and anthracite), dual-medium synthetic filter may allows the suspended solids in the liquid to
be filtered to penetrate farther into the filter bed and increase the storage capacity of solids in
the filter. Therefore, it allows extending filtration time because the head loss development
across the filter media is reduced.
The primary objective of this research is to investigate the performance of dual-medium
synthetic filter in wastewater effluents filtration applications and its feasibility of satisfying
water reuse standards (i.e., turbidity < 2.0) (Water reuse standards, Ministry of Environment,
1998). The feasible operational ranges (i.e., compression ratios, filtration rates, and filter
medium types) which affect on the performance of the filtration process were investigated
using single- and dual-medium synthetic filters.
Methods
The secondary wastewater effluent was collected from the GwangJu municipal wastewater
treatment plant in GyeongGi province, Korea. The plant has a capacity of 20,000 m
3
/day and
it has been operating with an activated sludge process as a secondary treatment since 1990. A
submerged pump was installed in the overflow well in one of the secondary sedimentation
tanks in the plant to supply wastewater effluents to influent feed system for this study. Table
1 shows the characteristics of influent used for this study.
Three different kinds of open porous polyurethane foams (Figure 1) with different
density and pore size (PU-1, PU-2 and PU-3) were used as synthetic filter mediums to
determine their filtration performance in laboratory scale experiment. Table 2 shows the
characteristics of mediums that used in this study. Depth of the filter bed was 250mm and all
filters operated at filtration rate of 107 L/m
2
min. Wastewater effluent is introduced at the
bottom of the filter and it flows up through the filter media and is discharged from the top of
the filter.

Table 1. Influent characteristics of source water for lab-scaled study and water reuse
standards for agriculture irrigation and landscape irrigation.
Compressible synthetic dual-medium filtration of wastewater effluents for water reuse

Raw water Wastewater effluent Standards for
water ruse
Turbidity (NTU) 38 - 105 2.6 5.3 < 2
Color Pt-Co unit 41 - 57 20 - 33 < 20
COD
a
mg/L 51.9 - 71.7 11.2 15.5 < 20
DOC mg/L 10.9 - 12.0 6.7 7.6 NA
b

Total coliform 100mL
-1
3.010
5
- 8.010
6
2.010
4
- 7.310
4
ND
c

pH 6.8 7.5 7.1 -7.3 5.8 8.5
a
Oxidant used for COD measurement is KMnO
4
instead of K
2
Cr
2
O
7
;
b
NA: not applied;
c
ND: not detected. Note: Other parameters which are not listed in Table 1 include residual
chlorine (combined), appearance, BOD and odor.



(a) (b)

(c) (d)
Figure 1. (a) Open porous polyurethane foam with 40 pores per 10 mm (PU-1), 20 pores per
10 mm (PU-2) and 40 pores per 10mm (PU-3), Microscopic images (50) of (b) PU-1, (c)
PU-2 and (d) PU-3 with scale bar of 500 m

Table 2. Characteristics of open porous polyurethane foams that used in this study
PU-1 PU-2 PU-3
Material Polyurethane Polyurethane Polyurethane
Porosity % 97.2 97.5 97.9
Apparent density kg/m
3
34.4 67.5 20
Tensile strength kfg/cm
2
1.6 1.4 1.0
Elongation % 137 217 191
Tearing strength kgf/cm 0.8 1.4 0.7
Compression recovery 94.2 87.8 97.7

The performance of single- (PU-1) and dual-medium (PU-1 and PU-2) filters was
compared with respect to removal of total suspended solids (TSS) and turbidity. As shown in
Table 2, three different filtration rates, 167, 333 and 500 L/m
2
min, at different compression
ratios, 0, 30, 50 and 70 %, were evaluated to determine their feasible ranges of the operation.
The filtration time for each run was 24 hours. A filter bed was 1000mm in both filters and for
dual-medium filter, it filled with two different mediums of PU-1 and PU-2 by 500mm. PU-2
medium which has bigger size of pores was placed bottom of the PU-1. The height and
PU-1 PU-2 PU-3
Compressible synthetic dual-medium filtration of wastewater effluents for water reuse

diameter of the filter used in this comparison study were 1400 and 250mm, respectively. A
schematic diagram for the filtration system is shown in Figure 2.

Table 2. Operating conditions of single- and dual-medium synthetic filters
Filtration rate
(L/m
2
min)
Compression ratio
(%)
Bed depth (mm) Total water
produced (m
3
/day)
167 0 1000 11.8
167 30 1000 11.8
167 50 1000 11.8
167 70 1000 11.8
333 0 1000 23.3
333 30 1000 23.3
333 50 1000 23.3
333 70 1000 23.3
500 0 1000 35.0
500 30 1000 35.0
500 50 1000 35.0
500 70 1000 35.0



(a) (b)
Figure 2. (a) A schematic diagram for single- and dual-medium synthetic filters, (b) An
image of experimental set-up
Results and discussion
Comparison of filter performance
As shown in Figure 1, three open porous polyurethane foams with different porosity by
density and sizes (PU-1, PU-2 and PU-3) were used as synthetic filter mediums to determine
their filtration performance in laboratory scale experiment. Figure 3 displays turbidity profile
of 8-day operation without back wash and all of the effluents from PU-1 reactors were equal
to or lower than 2 NTU for influent turbidity values of up to 8.3 NTU. Similar to the
turbidity result, the TSS removal in PU-1 reactor showed higher than that of PU-2 and PU-3.
However, the head loss development in PU-1 reactor increased faster than that of PU-2 and
PU-3. The head loss in PU-1 increased from 470 to 580 mm of H
2
O and when head loss in
PU-2 and PU-3 were slightly increased from 400 to 440 and from 400 to 450, respectively.
The compression ratio was same for PU-1, PU-2 and PU-3, however, due to their different
pore sizes, the amount of solids accumulated in the filter medium PU-1 reached faster and it
corresponds to the result of TSS removal. The development of head loss is a function of TSS
accumulation in the media and most of the removal showed in the upper few millimetre of
the bed in single-medium bed filtration (Tchobanoglous and Eliassen 1970). Therefore, dual-
medium synthetic filter using PU-1 and PU-2 may reduces the head loss development across
the filter media.
Compressible synthetic dual-medium filtration of wastewater effluents for water reuse


0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Time (Days)
T
u
r
b
i
d
i
t
y

(
N
T
U
)
Inf luent PU- 1
PU- 2 PU- 3

0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Time(Days)
T
S
S

(
m
g
/
L
)
Inf luent PU- 1
PU- 2 PU- 3

Figure 3. Variation of effluent turbidity
profile (PU-1, PU-2 and PU-3)
Figure 4. Variation of suspended solids
profile (PU-1, PU-2 and PU-3)


Single- Vs. dual-medium synthetic filters
Single- and dual-synthetic medium filters at different compression ratios and filtration
rates were performed to compare their filter performance with respect to removal of turbidity
and total suspended solids, and head loss measurements. The tested filtration rates were at
167, 333 and 500 L/m
2
min, which are higher than those of sandfilters (Typical sand
filtration rate: 120 L/m
2
min) (Tchobanoglous et al. 2003). The filter bed depth was 1000
mm and the degree of compression ratios was adjusted by adding more mediums within the
depth. Figure 5 shows that the performance of turbidity removal in single- and dual-medium
synthetic filters versus the degree of compression ratios at various filtration rates. Without
compression (0%) of dual-medium filter, 23, 30 and 20% of the turbidity removal efficiency
were achieved at the filtration of 167, 333 and 500 L/m
2
min, respectively. The slight
increase in turbidity removal efficiency with the increase in compression ratios is shown in
Figure 5 and the removal efficiency of turbidity did not change with the increase in the
filtration rates. The average turbidity of wastewater effluent was 3.0 at the time of the study,
and in order to meet water reuse standards (i.e., turbidity <2 NTU), single- and dual-
synthetic medium filters will need to operate at compression ratios of 30 (<333 L/m
2
min)
and 50% (<500 L/m
2
min), respectively.
Figure 6 shows that the total suspended solids removal efficiency in single- and dual-
medium filters versus the compression ratios at different filtration rates. It shows the result
similar to that of turbidity that the increase in total suspended solids removal efficiency with
the increase in compression ratios is shown at filtration rates of 333 and 500L/m
2
min. The
total suspended solids removal was a function of the degree of compression. However, at the
filtration rate of 167 L/m
2
min, the total suspended solids removal efficiency did not
influence by the compression ratios of up to approximately 50% compression. In contrast to
the previous result in filtration rates which did not affect the performance of turbidity
removal, the efficiency of suspended solids increased with the decrease of filtration rate. In
Figure 6, it can be concluded that total suspended solids removal was more affected by the
filtration rates than that of turbidity in the synthetic medium filtration.

Compressible synthetic dual-medium filtration of wastewater effluents for water reuse

0
0. 2
0. 4
0. 6
0. 8
1
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
Compression ratios,%
T
u
r
b
i
d
i
t
y
,

C
/
C
0
pu- 1
pu- 1+pu- 2
0
0. 2
0. 4
0. 6
0. 8
1
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
Compression ratios,%
T
u
r
b
i
d
i
t
y
,
C
/
C
0
pu- 1
pu- 1+pu- 2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
Compression ratios, %
T
u
r
b
i
d
i
t
y
,

C
/
C
0
pu- 1
pu- 1+pu- 2
(a) (b) (c)
Figure 5. Performance of single- and dual-medium synthetic filters for turbidity removal at
various compression ratios and filtration rates: (a) 167 L/m
2
min, (b) 333 L/m
2
min and (c)
500 L/m
2
min

0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
Compression ratios, %
T
S
S
,

C
/
C
0
pu- 1
pu- 1+pu- 2
0
0. 2
0. 4
0. 6
0. 8
1
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
Compression ratios, %
T
S
S
,

C
/
C
0
pu- 1
pu- 1+pu- 2
0
0. 2
0. 4
0. 6
0. 8
1
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
Compression ratios, %
T
S
S
,

C
/
C
0
pu- 1
pu- 1+pu- 2
(a) (b) (c)
Figure 6. Performance of single- and dual-medium synthetic filters for total suspended solids
removal at various compression ratios and filtration rates: (a) 167 L/m
2
min, (b) 333
L/m
2
min and (c) 500 L/m
2
min

As shown in Figure 6, the performance of single- and dual-medium synthetic filters with
respect to total suspended solids increases with the increase of the degree of compression and
the decrease of the filtration rate. In Figure 7, head loss development increases linearly with
the increase of filtration rates at any degree of bed compression ratio. After 24-h of operation
in single-synthetic medium filter, the filtration rates at 333 and 500 L/m
2
min with the
compression ratio of 50 and 30% reached the terminal head loss (2500 mm H
2
O),
respectively. In contrast to that of single-synthetic medium filter, dual-medium synthetic
filter extend its operation up to 50% compression ratio at a filtration rate of 500 L/m
2
min
without reaching the maximum allowable head loss of 2500 mm H
2
O.
The particle size distribution of during the filtration in dual-synthetic medium filtration is
shown in Figure 8. A sample was taken from each sampling port located every 200mm on
the dual-medium synthetic filter. Most of the particles in the wastewater effluents (Figure 8a)
are distributed in the range between 50 and 300 m. By the end of the filtration (Figure 8f) at
the filter depth 1000 mm, most of particles in the filter effluent distributed in the range
between 5 and 50 m.


Compressible synthetic dual-medium filtration of wastewater effluents for water reuse

0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
Compression ratios, %
H
e
a
d
l
o
s
s
,

m
m

o
f

H
2
Opu- 1
pu- 1+pu- 2
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
Compression ratios, %
H
e
a
d
l
o
s
s
,

m
m

o
f

H
2
Opu- 1
pu- 1+pu- 2
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
Compression ratios, %
H
e
a
d
l
o
s
s
,

m
m

o
f

H
2
Opu- 1
pu- 1+pu- 2

(a) (b) (c)
Figure 7. Head loss development versus compression ratios at various filtration rates: (a) 167
L/m
2
min, (b) 333 L/m
2
min and (c) 500 L/m
2
min


Particle Size (m)
V
o
l
u
m
e

%
Particle Size (m)
V
o
l
u
m
e

%


(a) (b) (c)
V
o
l
u
m
e

%
Particle Size (m)
V
o
l
u
m
e

%
Particle Size (m)


(d) (e) (f)
Figure 8. Particle size distribution of the wastewater effluents in dual-synthetic medium
filtration: (a) Wastewater effluent (influent) (b) 200 mm, (c) 400 mm, (d) 600 mm, (d)
800mm and (f) 1000 mm (effluent)

As mentioned in the previous study (Caliskaner et al. 1999), the fluid to be filtered flows
through the media as opposed to flowing around the filtering media as in granular media
filters. The SEM images showed the difference between the new medium and the washed
medium. An unused mediums showed clean pores with no solids attached (Figure 9a and 9c)
and a medium after back wash still showed some solids inside the pores (Figure 9b). A
fouled medium without back wash is shown in Figure 9d and most of the pores were covered
with solids.



Particle Size (m)
V
o
l
u
m
e

%
Particle Size (m)
V
o
l
u
m
e

%
V
o
l
u
m
e

%
Particle Size (m)
V
o
l
u
m
e

%
Particle Size (m)
V
o
l
u
m
e

%
Particle Size (m)
V
o
l
u
m
e

%
Particle Size (m)
V
o
l
u
m
e

%
Particle Size (m)
V
o
l
u
m
e

%
Particle Size (m)
Compressible synthetic dual-medium filtration of wastewater effluents for water reuse


(a) (b) (c) (d)
Figure 9. SEM images illustrated the surface of (a) original PU-1 (100), (b) cleaned PU-1
after backwashing (50), (c) original PU-1 (5000) and (d) Fouled PU-1 before back wash
(5000)
Conclusions
A novel filtration process using compressible synthetic media (a form of polyurethane) is
able to treat wastewater effluents higher than those of conventional filtration systems such as
sand filter. Compared to the single-synthetic medium filter, dual-medium synthetic filter
allowed the total suspended solids in the liquid to be filtered to penetrate farther into the
filter bed and reduced head loss development in the filter. Therefore, it requires less times of
backwashing and able to produce more effluent than that of single-medium filter. To meet
water reuse standards (i.e., turbidity <2 NTU) in this study, single- and dual-synthetic
medium filters will need to operate at compression ratios of 30 (<333 L/m
2
min) and 50%
(<500 L/m
2
min), respectively. The efficiency of turbidity was slightly increased with the
increase in compression ratios. The total suspended solids removal was more affected by the
filtration rates than that of turbidity in the synthetic medium filtration.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by a grant (4-6-2) from Sustainable Water Resources Research
Center of 21
st
Century Frontier Research Program.
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