FramBliK – a new pilot project at Källby Wastewater Treatment Plant

In August, a new pilot for effective biological phosphorus and nitrogen removal was started at the Källby Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP). The project is called FramBliK, an Swedish acronym for “The biofilm process of the future in continuous operation”.

The project takes place within Elin Ossiansson’s PhD project and in collaboration with AnoxKaldnes Veolia Water Technologies. The purpose of the project is to create a process solution that is at least as compact and energy- and chemical-friendly as aerobic granular sludge (AGS), and which should be taken into account in future process choices at WWTPs.

The process consists of reactors with a mobile biofilm support material (similar to MBBR), but the support material is not made of plastic. In the new technology, CELLATM, a biological material is used instead and the carriers have a completely different shape than AnoxKaldnes´ “pasta wheels”. Unlike AGS, the process solution does not consist of batch reactors, but there is a continuous flow into and out of the process. One of the main goals of the project is to develop reliable biological phosphorus removal in this new biofilm process, which allows phosphorus to be separated from the wastewater without chemical addition.

As pretreatment before the biological treatment, the pilot from the ICU project is reused, which flocculates and filters influent wastewater to Källby WWTP before the water is pumped to the CELLA pilot. This time, fermentation of the filter sludge is not included, but instead the corresponding amount of produced carbon source is dosed in the form of a synthetic mixture directly to the biology to simplify the pilot setup.

The project ends in June 2025.