Fuzzy Filter Uses Compression In Advanced Primary Treatment

Advanced primary treatment reduces or eliminates the solids load or organic carbon out of the waste stream. By doing so, a wastewater plant can decrease aeration power and avoid the need to expand its treatment basin size. The removed solids can also be moved to a digester to produce energy.

One way to remove solids from the waste stream is by using a Schreiber fuzzy filter. As Thacher Worthen, President of Schreiber explains in this Water Online Radio interview, the fuzzy filter is a vessel filled with one and a quarter inch spherical balls made of a synthetic fiber which is compressible.

“Thousands of these balls are put into the tank,” Worthen explains. “The wastewater flows up through the bed, and the bed is compressed from the top down, therefore creating a compression or a variable porosity. The bigger pores are at the bottom of the bed, the finer pores are up towards the compression plate, and as the water flows up and through the bed, the larger particles are removed at the bottom and the smaller particles at the top.”

To learn more about why the fuzzy filter is a good fit for primary effluent treatment and to determine if it’s a good media for your application, click on the audio player below: