Wastewater treatment in submerged aerated biofilter under condition of high ammonium concentration

Treatment of wastewater produced in Service Areas (SA) located on expressways and highways is a worldwide problem because of increasing amount of roads and specific composition of those kinds of sewage. Insufficient removal of pollutants from wastewater discharged into surface water may cause serious environmental problems. In the present study efficiency of treatment of wastewater with high ammonium concentration in biological membrane system used on SA was investigated. Concentrations of ammonia nitrogen in wastewater flowing into bioreactor in none of the tested objects did not fall below 99.0 mg of N-NH₄·dm⁻³. Because of high ammonium content in sewage and high pH reaching value about 9, it is almost impossible to create favorable conditions for microorganisms that run purification processes resulting in low efficiency of phosphorus and nitrogen removal (reduction of biogenic compounds did not exceed 15%). Treatment of wastewater consisting mainly of urine with commonly used biological membrane technology has to be widely tested to perform suitable quality of discharged wastewater, to provide safety of surface water environment.