The presence of heavy metals on an intermittent basis in the influent of biological unit processes can lead to process upset and poor removal of organics. Heavy metal breakthrough from a pretreatment process may be caused by a number of reasons. In this study, the feasibility of adding metal adsorbing compounds (MACs) into a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) to mitigate the adverse effects of heavy metals breakthrough was investigated. A powdered activated carbon was found to be an effective MAC for heavy metals concentrations varying from 2 to 20mg/L. Organic removal efficiencies in a SBR using MACs were similar to those of a control SBR with no metals in the influent.
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Matsumoto et al. (1989) studied this question.