ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Applying Bio-Slow Sand Filtration
for Water Treatment
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1
State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of River Basin Water Cycle, China Institute
of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing, China
2
River Engineering Management Department of Liaocheng, Liaocheng, Shandong Province, China
Submission date: 2018-02-11
Final revision date: 2018-03-25
Acceptance date: 2018-03-26
Online publication date: 2019-01-02
Publication date: 2019-03-01
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2019;28(4):2243-2251
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ABSTRACT
Due to the shortage of water resources in China, the state has implemented a series of rainwater
harvesting projects. The safety of water quality cannot be guaranteed due to the lack of an effective
construction, running, and management system. Slow filters are low-maintenance systems that do not
require special equipment. In order to improve the performance of SSF in terms of the removal of bacteria
and solid granules, e.g., the microorganisms attached to the surface of a single grain of the filtering
material under a scanning electron microscope (50×) have been studied. Based on the improvements of
conventional slow sand filtration (SSF), the bio-slow sand filtration method has effectively mitigated and
helps to remove bacteria and other microbiological contaminants, as well as heavy metals, ammonia,
nitrogen, organic material, and turbidity of the harvested rainwater. The removal efficiency of bioslow
sand filtration was approximately 20-30% on particulate organic carbon, above 95% on ammonianitrogen,
and better than 96%, 95%, 95%, 80%, 70%, and 60% on Cu2+, Cd2+, Fe2+, Zn2+, Mn2+, and
Pb2+, respectively. The effluent quality meets the requirements of “standards for drinking water quality”
in China. The result indicated the bio-slow sand filtration method could achieve better water quality
results as an available water treatment technology.