Environ Earth Sci

DOI 10.1007/s12665-015-4288-8

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Effect of operating factors on the contaminants removal of a soil

filter: multi-soil-layering system
Yidong Guan1 Yuan Zhang2 Chun-Ni Zhong3 Xiao-Feng Huang3
Jie Fu4 Dongye Zhao4

Received: 15 July 2014 / Accepted: 7 March 2015

Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015

Abstract As a soil filter, the multi-soil-layering (MSL)

system has several advantages over some other conventional soil-based systems, including higher hydraulic load
rate (HLR) and lower probability of clogging. However,
the role of operating factors on the performance of MSL is
insufficiently understood, and this limits its further application to some extent. The present paper provides a holistic
overview of the crucial operating parameters, including
clogging and HLR, aeration, media composition and
structure, temperature, and C/N ratio. In particular, clogging and HLR are discussed extensively, since they could
cause much greater deterioration over the lifetime of the
soil filter than the other factors. There are currently few
relevant reports regarding the balance between maintaining
the reasonable range of HLR and minimizing less chance
of clogging. To fill this research gap, this paper proposes
& Yidong Guan
yidongguan@163.com
& Jie Fu
jzf0017@auburn.edu; jie.fu@ce.gatech.edu
& Dongye Zhao
zhaodon@auburn.edu
1

Collaborative Innovation Center of Atmospheric

Environment and Equipment Technology, School of
Environmental Science and Engineering, Nanjing University
of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044,
China

School of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Suzhou

University of Science and Technology, Suzhou 215007,
China

Wuxi Taihu Lake Management Company Limited,

Wuxi 214063, China

Department of Civil Engineering, Auburn University,

Auburn, AL 36832, USA

two applicable ways to reduce the opportunity for clogging,

namely, system suspension and/or enhanced aeration,
which will be time-saving and low cost. In addition, to
increase the denitrification capacity of MSL, effluent recirculation is proposed, a novel recommendation based on
the municipal wastewater treatment processes, which could
also improve the controllability of MSL from the perspective of biochemical reaction.
Keywords Enhanced aeration
System suspension

Hydraulic load rate
Clogging
Aeration
C/N ratio

Introduction
Decentralized wastewater treatment systems vary greatly
from traditionally centralized systems, since the former
approach mainly treats the effluent discharged from small
communities where the population density is low (US EPA
2002). They are accepted as cost-effective ways for wastewater treatment in the rural communities (Fu et al. 2012;
Massoud et al. 2009), and are recommended as the preferred sustainable form of sewage treatment over centralized systems (US EPA 2002). Among the various types of
decentralized wastewater treatment processes, multi-soillayering system (MSL) is a less utilized method, though it
shows advantages over some conventional land applications (Guan et al. 2012; Luanmanee et al. 2002a).
The MSL system was developed by Wakatsuki (1993) to
overcome a shortage of conventional seepage beds, which
are subject to clogging in the operation process and low
infiltration rate. As a type of soil filter, MSL system has
been applied to treat sewage in Japan for over 20 years. In
recent years, this biofilter has been used for wastewater
treatment in Thailand (Luanmanee et al. 2002a), USA

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Environ Earth Sci

(Pattnaik et al. 2008), and China (Guan et al. 2014; Luo

et al. 2014), and it seems that it has also attracted interest
from some other developing countries (Couto et al. 2013).
However, lack of sufficient understanding of such systems,
including MSL systems, among the designers and operators
can lead to significant environmental and health risks. It is
estimated that about 1020 % of decentralized treatment
systems in USA malfunction each year due to problematic
construction, operation and maintenance, which is a main
contributing source of degradation for the surface water
and groundwater and creates a risk for public health (US
EPA 2002, 2008).
In this context, this work focuses on the operating factors of MSL systems, which were less focused upon in
previous studies that have mainly concentrated on the
performance of MSL systems in wastewater treatment, and
emphasized the merits: higher hydraulic load rate (HLR)
and less opportunity to be clogged than some traditional
land applications. By introducing the idea of chemical reactor stability, this work/paper aims to: (1) explore the
effects of operating variables on the reactor performance
from a different perspective by summarizing the available
reports and our past experience concerned with operating
effects on MSL system performance; (2) clarify uncertainty
about the role of the different operation factors involved in
the removal of organic pollutants in the wastewater, and
then propose opportunities to improve MSL system performance after integrating a number of recently emerged
ideas. These efforts can improve our understanding of the
controllability of MSL system operating factors. Furthermore, the relevant research on improving the controllability of decentralized systems is rather limited, though
expectation of higher levels of service, protection of the
ecological environment and sustainability are putting increasing demands on natural treatment systems. For this
reason, this study could also be a beneficial reference to
natural wastewater treatment systems.

Construction and biochemical mechanism

of MSL systems
Construction
The effective height of MSL systems varies between 50 and
120 cma typical MSL system mainly consists of three
componentssoil mixed blocks (SMBs), water-permeable
layers (PLs), and porous pipe used for the aeration, and the
typical schematic configuration of a MSL system is displayed in Fig. 1 (Guan et al. 2012). Its construction components are like the chocolate cake (PL) inlaid with the
peanuts (i.e., SMB). SMB is basically composed of low-

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value local materials, including soil, organic material (OM,

e.g. sawdust, yard waste and corncob), iron powder and
charcoal, and the specific composition depends on the nature
of the wastewater and the type of media used (Masunaga
et al. 2003); PL material is mainly made of zeolite granular
(Attanandana et al. 2000; Luanmanee et al. 2001; Masunaga
et al. 2003) because of its high affinity with NH4-N. Generally, the granular size of SMB is much smaller (less than
1 mm) than PL material, whose diameter is about 35 mm
in most of the studies.
Biochemical mechanism
The possible contaminant removal mechanism of a MSL
system is shown in Fig. 2. It generally follows the principle
of the biofiltration process in a downflow manner. When
the influent wastewater flows through the upper packed bed
of a MSL system, the oxygen from the atmosphere would
be diffused into the influent to initialize the aerobic
oxidation after the organic materials are absorbed into the
surface of layers (SMB and PL). The organic carbon and
organic nitrogen are oxidized to CO2 and ammonia nitrogen, respectively, and the latter is then oxidized to nitrate
under the nitrification process with the help of diffused
oxygen after being sorbed on the loaded zeolite (i.e., PL
material). Then, the denitrification in the SMB could be
completed through two channels: a part of nitrate that is
produced in the aerobic condition from the upper layer of
MSL could be reduced to nitrogen gas and nitrous oxide
when it flows into SMB. The porosity of SMB is much
lower than PL, which is favored to build an anaerobic
condition inside or the external carbon material (sawdust,
kenaf and concorb, etc.), and the OM added inside the MSL
could further foster the growth of the denitrifying community. Moreover, the nitrate could be partly transferred to
nitrogen gas and nitrous oxide when the effluent flow
through the PL chamber, since the oxygen content is
gradually exhausted by the combination action of the biological oxidation and the less diffusion of the depth oxygen
content. Phosphorus (P) is mainly removed by the form of
phosphorus precipitation by the added ferrous in the SMB
when the wastewater flows over the medium.
The aeration may be necessary to enhance the removal
of organic contaminants, since it is possible that the natural oxygen diffusion could not provide sufficient oxygen
for the biological oxidation reaction. The profile of
anaerobic and aerobic condition could be controlled with
the help of the aeration apparatus inside MSL. More detailed information about the biochemical mechanism of
MSL can be obtained in Fig. 2, which provides a
schematic diagram about the reaction routes in biological
reaction systems.

Environ Earth Sci

Fig. 1 MSL reactors
(a Schematic of the MSL
reactors; b Structure of MSL
system; c Profile of SMB). The
unit of two dimensions was
millimeter (mm). The figure is
slightly revised and redrawn
according to Guan et al. (2012)

(A)

Leachate

Peristaltic
pump

Leachate

zeolite

zeolite

zeolite

zeolite

SMB

SMB

SMB

Effluent

Leachate
reservior

Leachate

SMB

Aerated
pipeline

Effluent

Effluent

M200
Circulation
pump

Leachate

M400
Aerated
pipeline

M800
Aerated
Diffuser pipeline

Effluent
M1600
Aerated
pipeline

SMB

(B)

(C)
Half SMB
Zeolite particle
3-5 mm
SMB
Aeration pipe

From diffuser
Baffle
Effluent

Influence of operating factors

While evaluating the flexibility in management and the
affordable cost for the decentralized wastewater treatment
process, a MSL system could be more frequently subject to
the impact or stress from the variations of parameters than
the centralized wastewater treatment approaches, since the
former usually has less complex techniques, critical
knowledge and information gaps. Here, the clogging and
HLR, aeration, media composition and structure, and
temperature and C/N ratio are considered to be the crucial
parameters discussed because each could obviously influence the performance of a MSL system due to both extrinsic and intrinsic control parameter fluctuations.
Clogging and HLR
Clogging in porous media is a complex phenomenon that
originates from the colloid deposition, which could be
caused by the physical and/or chemical effects (Mays and
Hunt 2007). Whereas it is not a one-way action, the HLRs
of soil filter reduce greatly also as clogging happens, as a
consequence of decreasing porosity of filter (Guan et al.
2014). More importantly, as a soil filter, clogging of the

Note: The media component of one SMB

is listed below:
Item

Particle
size, mm

Soil

1 mm

sawdust

1 mm

iron

mm

charcoal

mm

Media
mass, g

Mass ratio
(dry weight, %)

porous media is still one of the main factors affecting its

lifetime, though MSL is assumed as one process with low
operation and maintenance requirements. Clogging of MSL
has been a major problem that results in total system failure
(Guan et al. 2012; Luanmanee et al. 2001).
Usually, fine media are prone to clog in biofiltration
systems due to the sensitive hydraulic conductivity to
media size (Knowles et al. 2011). The media granule
packed in a MSL system is relatively large (usually
35 mm), so a MSL system is assumed to be less prone to
clogging and can sustain a higher HLR than some conventional soil systems with smaller particle sizes (Guan
et al. 2012). Moreover, the alternative brick-pattern of
constructed media (SMB and PL, as shown in Fig. 1) is
helpful to reduce clogging in MSL systems. The experiment results from Masunaga et al. (2003) showed that
under a HLR of 14 m3/(m2 day), the removals of BOD5
(biological oxygen demand), TN (total nitrogen) and TP
(total phosphorus) were 72.283.5 %, 22.450.5 % and
51.966.8 %, respectively. Wakatsuki et al. (2000) found
there was no serious clogging under a HLR of 4000 L/
(m2 day) for more than 12 months when a MSL system
was used to treat the polluted river water (influent biological oxidation demand (BOD5) of 1020 mg/L).

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Environ Earth Sci

Fig. 2 Possible mechanism of
contaminant removal in MSL
system. The figure is redrawn
according to references
(Luanmanee et al. 2001;
Wakatsuki et al. 1993)

Wastewater
Organic carbon
PO43-

CO2, CH4

NH4

N2O, N2

Soil mixed layer

(Anoxic)
Soil
Physical filtration
Physical/chemical adsorption
PO43- fixation by FE/AL oxide
Microbial decomposition

Organic
carbon
Decomposed

Fe

CH2O+NO3

Metal iron
Fe

Zeolite

OH

Mixed
organic
material
(C source)

Fe3
Fe(OH)3

Zeolite

2+

Fe3

Higher loading is always an important indicator to

evaluate the performance of biofilter since it could reduce
the land area and materials required for filter construction,
and therefore, reduce costs to homeowners. Higher permeability of soil filter is always preferred by the researchers. Moreover, the hydraulic load rates of wastewater
might bring an adverse impact of the biochemical process
of biofilters (Torrens et al. 2009), including the mean
residence time of reactor, oxygen transportation, and nutrient removal. Despite its important effects on the performance of MSL systems, the interpretation of interaction
between HLR and the treatment performance appears to be
inconsistent. For the organic contaminant removal, Ran
et al. (2004) suggests that the removal of organic material
increases with the HLR, while N and P removal is mainly
dependent on the plant absorption and sedimentation,
which are less affected by the HLR. However, Wilson et al.
(2011) shows that the chemical oxygen demand (CODcr,
denoted as COD), TN and TP removal are generally not
affected by the variation of HLRs in six sand filters. Those

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NH4
adsorption

NH4+

NO3

PO43 adsorption/precipitation

results indicate that the intrinsic function of biochemical

process of reactor provides a buffering against the variation
of HLRs, and the obvious variations might be due to the
different tolerance towards HLRs for the different biofilters. According to our recent experimental results (Guan
et al. 2012), COD and TN removal of a MSL system are
deteriorated along with the higher HLRs, while TP removal
is generally not affected by the HLRs. Although the
anaerobic and aerobic zones inside the porous media filters
could be strongly influenced by the HLRs, they are assumed to be simultaneously determined by the other
boundary conditionwater depth, which would be helpful
to build the oxidizing conditions for the removal of COD
and nutrients (Garcia et al. 2004). Thus, a careful balance
between the load rate and filter condition is needed to
guarantee the long-term operation of soil filter.
It still should be noted cautiously that a MSL system
becomes progressively unstable under the high HLR.
Overloaded HLR would be likely to result in the degradation imbalance of the microorganism and the following

Environ Earth Sci

clogging process (Knowles et al. 2011; Sato et al. 2005b),

though MSL could adapt a certain degree of HLR change
while sustaining low variation of contaminant removal
efficiency as mentioned above. According to Guan et al.s
report (2012), two MSLs with higher HLR [800 and 1600
L/(m2 day)] were found to be clogged after operating
48 days among four MSL reactors, and their effluents were
gray with foul odor and persisted for over 5 weeks. Contrarily, the other two MSLs were not clogged under lower
HLR, 200 and 400 L/(m2 day). The evident variation might
owe to the imbalance between the wastewater input and
output with the OM decomposition, since the mineralization rate of OM is less than the OM accumulation rates [as
suggested by the increased weight of a MSL system (Sato
et al. 2005b)]. This phenomenon (i.e., hydraulic overloading of MSL) is very similar to the clogging growth in
constructed wetlands (CWs) (Knowles et al. 2011) and
sand filters (Healy et al. 2007).
Clogging can be rapidly formed under the extreme
events or improper operation (Knowles et al. 2011). Under
this condition, the enhanced aeration, by using the porous
pipe, is a good option to relieve the clogging. It has been
proved that the intermittent aeration could effectively remove the clogging of a MSL system by breaking the sticky
film on the media surface, and the soil filter could recover
the infiltration capacity of clogged porous (Guan et al.
2012).
Aeration
As can be noted in Fig. 1, aeration equipment installed in a
MSL system could enhance the decomposition of organic
pollutants in wastewater and is an effective way to remove
organic contaminants. Under an aeration intensity of 27.4
Lair/(Lwastewater min), the decolorization and COD removal
efficiency of livestock wastewater were 60.767.1 % and
48.858.0 %, respectively, under HLR 250 L/(m2 day),
and the increment of aeration intensity could raise the removal efficiency effectively (Chen et al. 2007a). Without
aeration, the removal efficiency of suspended solids (SS),
BOD5, COD, TN and TP for cafeteria wastewater was 53,
48, 58, 83 and 53 %, respectively, under a HLR of 457 L/
(m2 day) (Attanandana et al. 1997). Under continuous
aeration supply for a month, the corresponding pollutants
removal efficiency obviously increased to 71, 90, 70, 91
and 90 % under HLR 420 L/(m2 day).
Nevertheless, excessive aeration may negatively affect
the normal metabolism of microorganisms. It has been
found that the excessive aeration operation could cause
strong nitrification processes in MSL systems (Guan et al.
2012; Luanmanee et al. 2002b), and then inhibit the
denitrification process as a result of the absence of reducing
conditions following nitrification. Thus, denitrification is

considered to be the first factor affecting the TN removal in

MSL systems (Sato et al. 2005a). For a MSL system operating for 10 years without aeration, the removals of
BOD5, TN and TP were 95.0, 54.0 and 82.9 %, respectively; under continuous air supply for 24 h [with airflow
2.8 9 104 L/(m3 day)], the removal of TN dropped to
31 % while that of BOD5 and TP increased slightly, and
TN removal recovered to 73 % after aeration suspended
(Luanmanee et al. 2001).
To balance the removal of COD, TN and TP in MSL,
researchers have attempted intermittent aeration. Under
intermittent aeration (3 days aeration and 2 months suspension), Luanmanee et al. (2002a) found that the removal
of COD, TN and TP was \27, 65.3 and 83.0 %, respectively. Concerning the controlling factors for N removal,
Wakatsuki et al. (2000) suggested that starting aeration
supply using the on/off regulation when the effluent
reaches a pH [ 7 and stopping oxygen supply at pH \ 6 to
avoid the leaching of nitrate and phosphate. Nevertheless,
this suggestion appears more as a conceptual idea, since
there are only few evident works on this issue for MSL, and
further research is needed to validate the experimental effectiveness of the controlling strategy for TN removal using pH profiles. Moreover, a MSL system would realize the
real-time control of nitrogen removal based on quantifying
the reaction kinetics after the various controlling apparatuses [such as ORP (oxidation reduction potential) and
other auxiliary units] are installed in MSL systems. However, such upgradation would lead to an overly complex
design at the expense of losing the compactness inherent in
its structure; maybe we should be careful about the
advancement.
Media composition and structure
The media composition of a MSL system has important
effects on reactor performance as a biofilter. The granular
size and biodegradable nature of various organic materials
(OMs) would have an evident effect on the contaminant
removal of soil filter by determining the thickness and
density of biofilms. Luanmanee et al. (2002b) investigated
the suitability of OM by comparing the effluent BOD5, P
and N concentration and concluded that straw, kenaf fiber
and corncobs are the suitable OM for MSL systems, but
sawdust is not since its granular size was small and the
progress of decomposition was slow. Attanandana et al.
(2000) considered that charcoal could be an alternative to
zeolite when they were utilized as the PL material (80 and
86 % TN removal for charcoal and zeolite, respectively).
Similarly, Pattnaik et al. (2007) drew a comparison between the zeolitized perlite and Leilehua soil while they
were applied as the PL material, and concluded that their
treatment efficiency was approximately equal (2293 %

123

Environ Earth Sci

and 2196 %, respectively) for inorganic N removal, but P

removal of the latter was better. Masunaga et al. (2003)
reached the conclusion that Entisol (granitic sandy soil)
was more efficient for TN and TP removal than Andisol
(volcanic ash soil) when conducting the comparison tests in
six MSL systems treating polluted river water.
The alteration of media composition indicated above is
predominantly concentrated on the organic part of SMB,
but the modification of SMB bulk density is rarely conducted by the researchers. Our last report (Guan et al.
2012) shows that such media composition modification
could be helpful to improve the performance of soil filter.
The SMB bulk density of a MSL system is less than 60 %
of the recommended value, and the higher ratio of biomass
embedded in media in a MSL system could help to enhance
N removal and increase HLR owing to the higher porous
texture of improved SMB (Guan et al. 2012). According to
our experiment results (Guan et al. 2012), the improved
MSL system could sustain normal operation under HLR
800 and 1600 L/(m2 day) when aerated three times (about
72 h totally) in more than 6 months of operation under
intermittent aeration.
On the other hand, the structure of the filter could have
an important function on the contaminant removal by
providing a plane/pore volume, which would allow for
better treatment performance by maximizing the active
contact with the contaminants within the filter. The filter
depth is mainly utilized to capture the contaminants using
surface affinity. Among a total of six layer media, 80 % of
COD was removed in the top soil layer (Sato et al. 2005a).
The further research proves that the top increment of surface area could reach higher COD removal efficiency than
the lateral area in MSL systems (Chen et al. 2007b).

been proved that MSL systems could be utilized from the

subtropical climate (e.g. Kunming, China), to the temperate
marine climate (e.g. Mitsue, Japan), to the tropical climate
(e.g. Bangkok, Thailand and Honolulu, USA).
Influent C/N ratio is one of the most critical parameters
for biological nitrogen removal (Carrera et al. 2004). When
the stoichiometric ratio of influent COD/TN in MSL increases from 6.7 to 14 g-COD/g-N, the TN removal efficiency improves from 41.7 to 81 % (Luanmanee et al.
2002a), indicating the promoting action of carbon source as
the electron donors for anoxic denitrification. Based on our
recent work (unpublished), the incremental contribution of
the COD/TN ratio for TN removal is mainly in the range of
15, whereas TN removal is weakly affected by COD/TN
ratios greater than 5. When the COD/TN ratios rise from 3
to 4 g-COD/g-N, the incremental effect of TN removal is
slight, which might be attributed to the carbon material
embedded in SMB. Wei et al. (2009) also concluded that
the higher influent COD/N ratio leads to better removal
efficiency not only for TN, but also for COD and TP. We
believe that it is because a part of COD is consumed in the
denitrification process. Moreover, the nature of the carbon
source had a more important influence on denitrification.
Healy et al. (2007) mentioned that with septic tank effluent
as the carbon source, only 25 % denitrification could occur,
much lower than 99 % denitrification while utilizing
methanol and ethanol. It is assumed that part of the reason
for the low TN removal in the work by Guan et al. (2012) is
the refractory characteristics of the landfill leachate utilized
in the experiment. Therefore, enough organic electron
donors have to be supplied to obtain the good anoxic
denitrification in the wastewater treatment, especially
while the stubborn organic compounds are applied as a
carbon source.

Temperature and C/N ratio

Temperature and C/N ratio are two important limiting
factors for the bacterial growth in biochemical reactors
(Rittmann and McCarty 2002). Biological reaction rates
increase with rising temperature until an optimal temperature is reached; above the optimal temperature, enzymatic proteins denature and the rates decrease in fixed film
processes (Zhu and Chen 2002). In suitable temperature
ranges (2535 C) and moist conditions, MSL systems
could achieve over 95 % BOD5 removal efficiency
(Luanmanee et al. 2002b). In the available reports about
MSL, the annual average temperature is 15 C in Japan
(Mitsue), 29 C in Thailand (Bangkok), 16 C in China
(Kunming City, Yunnan Province), and 25 C in USA
(Honolulu, Hawaii), respectively, and the corresponding
lowest to highest temperature is 131 C, 2236 C,
324 C, and 1831 C, respectively. Therefore, it has

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Perspective on performance improvement

Unclogging
As mentioned above, a clogged filter could cause a
detrimental effect on the lifespan of a filter. However, in
the event of blockage, there is still the possibility of relieving congestion by some time-saving methods. System
suspension and/or aeration could be used to remove
clogging of MSL systems. It was reported that MSL
systems clogging was alleviated after an 8-week rest
(Masunaga et al. 2007). According to Guan et al.s report
(2012), MSL is clogged under HLR of 800 and 1600 L/
(m2 day) with foul-smelling odors, and the clogging is
removed after 1 month with a 3-day period of aeration. It
is assumed that the clogged pores are mainly recovered by

Environ Earth Sci

breaking stuck biofilm and stimulating aerobic growth.

Therefore, if clogging occurs, it may not be necessary to
replace the top media in the surface layer. Intermittent
dosing or prolonged system rest would be effective for
reducing the risk of MSL system clogging, and aeration
could be applied as an enhanced way to increase the
oxygen transfer directly and relieve the biochemical stress
on the aerobic microorganisms.
Recirculation
In addition to the mentioned factors affecting N removal,
such as temperature and C/N, the improvement in N removal could be obtained by hydrodynamics. Denitrification
in a MSL system is limited by the absence of reducing
conditions following nitrification and the lack of an available carbon source (Healy et al. 2007), since a MSL system
is usually operated under the normal single-pass filter operation. Thusly, by recirculating the effluent to the inlet
end, the nitrogen cycle could be completed according to the
mechanism of one-sludge nitrification process (Rittmann
and McCarty 2002), since it has been revealed that a MSL
system is a promising nitrification filter (Guan et al. 2012;
Luo et al. 2014).
By building the pre-denitrification process, a MSL system (regarded as one nitrification reactor) is coupled with a
reservoir tank (as the denitrification reactor), and the MSL
system could utilize the recirculating effluent BOD to fuel
denitrification. This can also diminish organic matter loads
using a part of the influent COD as carbon source during a
denitrification process. Actually, this concept has been
widely employed in wastewater treatment processes, including the activated sludge systems (Maranon et al. 2008),
constructed wetlands (Poldvere et al. 2010) and soil filters
(Kadam et al. 2009), but never in MSL systems. Moreover,
immediately after reactor start-up, recirculation can be
helpful to ensure the consistent moisture content throughout the vertical media profile of the reactor and accelerate
the establishment of a viable microbial population, thereby
shortening the time required to initiate the decomposition
process. From the view of biochemical reaction, since recirculation is a process of a microbe mixture, it is also
helpful in raising the stability of biofilters with a suitable
recirculation ratio, and would be good to raise the controllability of MSL systems. Recirculation could also determine the flow pattern of a reactor, a plug-flow or a
mixed flow pattern by adjusting the recirculation rate
(Chua and Yu 1997), which provides a potential way to
boost the performance of MSL systems. Therefore, we can
improve the contaminant removal of MSL systems by integrating the operating factors from the relevant studies and
proposing effluent recirculation.

Conclusions
Clogging of MSL system is greatly affected by the physical, chemical, and biochemical processes, including the
media characteristics (granule size and structure of media)
and HLR. Higher granule size and alternative brick-pattern
of media in MSL systems are helpful to reduce the clogging risk by sustaining a higher hydraulic conductivity, but
overloaded HLR could trigger a rapid OM accumulation
and result in a progressively unstable performance. Aeration could be utilized to relieve the clogging by breaking
the sticky film on the media surface. Moreover, aeration
could enhance the removal of organic contaminants as well
through the biological oxidation reaction, and increment of
aeration intensity could raise the removal efficiency effectively. However, excessive aeration may negatively affect the normal metabolism of microorganism, and
intermittent aeration may provide a possible solution to
balance the removal of COD, TN, and TP in MSL systems.
Biochemical processes of MSL systems provide a
buffering effect against the variation of HLR, which
strongly influences the distribution of anaerobic and aerobic zones by varying the water depth. In addition, the
temperature and C/N ratio are also important limiting
factors for the biochemical reactor due to their effects on
the growth conditions of bacteria. To improve the performance of MSL systems, it is suggested that the system
suspension and/or aeration could be utilized to remove the
clogging of biofilter, and effluent recirculation is another
option to enhance the denitrification process and the reactor
stability by consuming a part of influent COD as the carbon
source and accelerating the establishment of a viable microbial population thanks to the consistent redistribution of
water content.
Acknowledgments The research was partially subsidized by
scholarship from Demonstration Base of Water Quality Improvement
and Ecosystem Restoration at Lakeside Zone of Taihu Xincheng
(2012ZX07101-013-02), and Nanjing University of Information
Science and Technology (NUIST, No. 2013x010). The authors also
thank the anonymous reviewer and the editor for their valuable
comments and constructive suggestions to improve the quality of this
paper.

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