Biological Filtration on Sand of Dunes – Filters Fouling

Youcef Touil (1) , Yamina Gherairi (1) , Rachid Issaadi (2) , Abdeltif Amrane (3, 4)

1 Laboratoire de biogéochimie des milieux désertiques
2 UB1 - Université Saâd Dahlab Blida 1
3 UEB - Université européenne de Bretagne - European University of Brittany
4 ISCR - Institut des Sciences Chimiques de Rennes

The use of sand of dunes as a filtration support for domestic wastewater treatment demonstrated its efficiency at pilot scale. However, the filter receives non negligible amounts of suspended matter, leading to biological clogging owing to the colonization of the pores of the filtration media by biomass and related by-products. Fouling time-course was examined in this work. Measurements carried out at various column heights showed that the difference of porosity between the first and last layers can reach 2%, while the decrease between the initial and the final state was above 7% for all layers. Organic matter accumulation followed similar history than fouling, showing its involvement in the process and its preponderance in the fouling mechanism if compared to mechanical fouling. The amount of organic matter was mainly apparent in the two upper layers of sand and exceeded 2% in the first sand layer after 7 days

Mots clés: Fouling; Organic matter; Porosity; Sand bio-filtration; Wastewater treatment

Domaines: Chimie

Youcef Touil, Yamina Gherairi, Rachid Issaadi, Abdeltif Amrane. Biological Filtration on Sand of Dunes – Filters Fouling. Energy Procedia, 2014, Technologies and Materials for Renewable Energy, Environment and Sustainability (TMREES14 – EUMISD), 50, pp.471--478. ⟨10.1016/j.egypro.2014.06.057⟩. ⟨hal-01220894⟩