Demonstration study of biofilm reactor based rapid biochemical oxygen demand determination of surface water

• A biofilm reactor based BOD analyzer was used for surface water determination.
• BOD was calculated by the differences between [O2]Sample and [O2]Sample Effluent-BFR.
• The system requires no chemical reagent in measurements.
• The simplicity in device made this method promising for online applications.

Application investigations of rapid biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) online analyzer for surface water in Wuxi, China were carried out since 2013. The analyzer adopted a novel working principle, that is, the oxygen concentration of the sample to be tested was regarded as a reference, and the oxygen consumption by the biofilm reactor (BFR) was calculated according to the difference between the reference and sample effluent from BFR. The BFR was fabricated via a cultivation process using naturally occurring microbial seeds from in site surface water. This analytical principle was first presented and clearly clarified, and the impact of microbial endogenous respiration to the measured values was also proposed and analyzed. The improved analyzers were equipped in three application sites with significant differences in BOD concentration, for the purpose of evaluating the feasibility and applicability of the proposed method. This study revealed that the online analyzer could continually operate over 30 days without human intervention and additional chemical reagent consumption. The obtained rapid BOD trend line showed that this analyzer could track the fluctuation of the biodegradable organic compound level timely and accurately. The innovative analytical method, as well as the outstanding adaptation and well accuracy rating, provided the highlights for wide applications in the future.

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