Tertiary treatment of aerated lagoon effluents by sphagnum peat moss laboratory studies

Abstract

Secondary effluents from aerated facultative lagoons were filtered through sphagnum peat moss filter columns having uniform grain size of about 1 mm. Rate of filtration varied between 10 to 80 cm d^‐1. Conventional sand filter of grain size about 1 mm was also ínstalled along side the peatmoss to serve as a comparison. Filtration rate in the latter varied between 42 and 83 cm d^‐1. In all cases, it was found that the peatmoss filters had excellent properties of removing particulate matter, turbidity and total coliform group of indicator organisms. Soluble phosphorus removal was not very satisfactory. Although there was a reduction of pH in the early stages of filter maturation this value was regained eventually to within acceptable limits.