Rotating Biological Contactor
Ammonia in wastewater (e.g. urine) has a negative impact on streams, lakes and groundwater. Biological processes can be used to transform ammonia into less harmful nitrate or to remove ammonia completely.
While the production of nitrate can be achieved easily by keeping the oxygen concentration high and the pH value low (nitrification process), complete nitrogen removal is more challenging. To remove nitrogen from urine, either organic substrate has to be added or specialized bacteria - anaerobic ammonium oxidizers - have to be added (anammox process).
STUN developed a rotating biological contactor (RBC), which can be used for the biological treatment of domestic wastewater, urine or struvite production effluent. With this reactor, ammonia was successfully oxidized to nitrate. The experiments with anammox bacteria have not been completed yet.
RBC downloads
Construction manual:
Low-Cost RBC Construction Manual [PDF 5MB]
Drawings:
Download all drawings as PDF:
Download all drawings as AutoCAD filed (.dwg):
Download individual drawings as PDF:
- AII.1: Arrangement [PDF 1.7MB]
- AII.2: Disc construction [PDF 827kB]
- AII.3: Rotor construction [PDF 2.7 MB]
- AII.4: Bearing assembly [PDF 1.7MB]
- AII.5: Steel support frame [PDF 590kB]
- AII.6: Drive [PDF 1.7kB]
- AII.7: Arrangement inflow [PDF 233kB]
- AII.8: Battery cage [PDF 1MB]
- AII.9: Alternative rotor design [PDF 4.1MB]
Acknowledgement
The STUN team would like to thank the Symphasis Foundation for the generous financial support.