During the wet-weather season, influent wastewater flow to many wastewater treatment plants increases significantly. The water quality of influent during the wet season is typically high in both BOD and suspended solids concentration. Municipal wastewater treatment plants can usually handle the increased influent, but during those times when plants are overwhelmed and cannot handle the additional flow conditions, they sometimes need to bypass the wet-weather flow, risking serious contamination to nearby bodies of water.

Seeing this issue as unacceptable, Tomorrow Water has introduced the Proteus high-rate filtration system for wastewater treatment. The system uses Tomorrow Water’s BBF floating media to effectively remove suspended solids and soluble organic compounds through physical filtration and biological treatment. As a replacement for primary clarifiers, it can shrink process footprints while increasing carbon capture and biogas production. The expanded polypropylene media design boasts a high solids loading rate, providing the ideal surface area to build biofilm.

Through carbon diversion, BBF facilitates the effective removal of solids and soluble organics by performing biological treatment and physical filtration simultaneously. The process begins when the influent enters the BBF reactor from the top through the influent pipe, then gravity reaches the bottom and then flows upward through both media layers. Particles are filtered by the media, and soluble pollutants and nutrients that pass through the media layer are removed by the media’s biofilm. The treated water then exits the reactor through the effluent waterway on top of the reactor. As the upflow treatment process continues, headloss will be increased by the excess solid deposits.

The expanded polypropylene media provides a high solids loading rate with a unique shape and a high void ratio. Gravity-based, zero-energy backwash uses only process water for cleaning. With continuous aeration capability and no settling required, the system can manage high peaking factors and variable flow rates, simplifying treatment of dilute flows.

weather flows, secondary treatment without clarifiers, tertiary filters and nitrification/denitrification. It can be used for retrofits >span class="s5">and plant expansions. With continuous aeration capabilities and no settling required, the system can manage high peaking factors and variable flow rates, simplifying the treatment of diluted flows. 714-578-0676; www.tomorrowwater.com