Removal of Total Organic Carbon (TOC)/Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC) and Trihalomethane Formation Potentials (THMFPs) from Surface Water using PreBiofilters

Biofiltration has long been used to treat drinking water in Europe and is becoming more widespread in North America. Pre-biofilters, or biofilters that operate as the first unit in a surface water treatment process train, are a cost-effective pretreatment for conventional surface water treatment and provide consistent downstream water quality. This paper describes a study that investigated the potential to remove total organic carbon (TOC)/dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and trihalomethane formation potential (THMFP) from surface water using prebiofilters. Furthermore, the impact of different molecular weight fractions of TOC/DOC and THMFPs in the surface water and the filtrates from the pre-biofilters were also investigated, respectively, in order to determine how well the prebiofilters can remove different fractions of TOC/DOC and THMFPs