Efficient adsorption of certain trace organic chemicals (TOrCs) present in secondary treated municipal wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents onto granular activated carbon (GAC) has already been demonstrated at lab- and full-scale. Due to high organic matter concentrations in WWTP effluents, GAC filters eventually develop a biofilm and turn into biological activated carbon filters (BAC), where removal of organic compounds is governed by biodegradation as well as by adsorption. However, determining TOrC breakthrough by conducting a long-term BAC column experiment to discern between the removal mechanisms is not possible due to competition for adsorption sites, fluctuating water quality, and other variables. Therefore, a rapid small scale column test (RSSCT) was conducted to determine the contribution of adsorption for select chemicals at 10,000 bed volumes treated (BVT). These results were then used in the pore surface diffusion model (PSDM) to model adsorption behavior at 40,000 BVTs. Pseudo-Freundlich K values obtained from the PSDM model were compared with K values obtained from an integral mass balance calculation. This comparison revealed that the modeling was most accurate for moderately to poorly adsorptive compounds. In comparing RSSCT results to long-term BAC columns, the modeling approach best predicted BAC removal of well adsorbing compounds, such as atenolol, trimethoprim, metoprolol, citalopram, and benzotriazole. However, differences in predicted vs observed BAC removal for the removals of venlafaxine, tramadol and carbamazepine revealed that BAC adsorption capacity was not yet exhausted for these compounds. Therefore, a comparison was not possible. The approach would be improved by operation at longer EBCT and improved calculation of compound fouling indices.

已经在实验室和大规模实验中证明了二级处理市政污水处理厂（WWTP）废水中存在的某些痕量有机化学物质（TOrC）可以有效吸附到颗粒状活性炭（GAC）上。由于污水处理厂废水中有机物的浓度很高，GAC过滤器最终会形成生物膜并变成生物活性炭过滤器（BAC），其中有机化合物的去除取决于生物降解和吸附。但是，由于竞争吸附位点，水质波动以及其他变量，因此无法通过进行长期的BAC柱实验来确定去除机理之间的TOrC突破是不可能的。因此，进行了快速小规模色谱柱试验（RSSCT），以确定在10，000床治疗量（BVT）。然后将这些结果用于孔表面扩散模型（PSDM）中以模拟40,000 BVT的吸附行为。比较从PSDM模型获得的伪弗洛伦奇K值与从积分质量平衡计算获得的K值。该比较表明，对于中等至较差的吸附化合物，建模最为准确。在将RSSCT结果与长期BAC色谱柱进行比较时，该建模方法最能预测BAC去除吸附良好的化合物（如阿替洛尔，甲氧苄啶，美托洛尔，西酞普兰和苯并三唑）的BAC去除率。但是，除去文拉法辛，曲马多和卡马西平的预期和观察到的BAC去除差异表明，这些化合物的BAC吸附能力尚未耗尽。因此，无法进行比较。