The effect of various operating conditions and water quality parameters on the removal of perchlorate in a biologically active carbon filter

The removal of μg/L concentrations of perchlorate using biologically active carbon filtration (BAC) was investigated. Previous work has shown that BAC filtration can be a highly effective treatment process for the removal of perchlorate from drinking water. The work presented here demonstrated that perchlorate removal using BAC filtration can be inhibited by dissolved oxygen. It also showed that empty-bed contact time is a key process parameter that affects perchlorate removal in the BAC filter. Finally, it was demonstrated that BAC filtration is robust with respect to electron donor addition failure.