Researchers at the University of New Mexico conducted a series of experiments to understand the effects of surface roughness on annular nitrifying biofilm reactors (Roveto et al., 2019). Their team used FLOW-3D to find possible explanations for their experimental observations.

Experimentally, it was found that negative skew surfaces show the highest rates of complete nitrification during biofilm growth. CFD simulations from FLOW-3D provide a possible explanation for this phenomenon. They illustrate that negative skew surfaces had larger regions with high shear than positive skew surfaces. These high shear regions may cause increased rates of attachment and rates of mass transfer which in turn increase the nitrification rate in biofilms. This research suggests a method of increasing the efficiency of nitrifying biofilms in wastewater treatment plants.

Read the full article at https://www.flow3d.com/surface-skew-effects-on-bio films-in-wastewater-treatment/