The AGAR® system is an innovative biological treatment process using thousands of special carriers designed to create an enormous total surface area for biofilm growth – enhancing your wastewater treatment process without expanding your footprint. The AGAR® system can be operated as either a “moving bed biological reactor” (MBBR) or an “integrated fixed-film activated sludge” (IFAS) configuration.

In the MBBR configuration offers a treatment process based on a bio-film which provides organic carbon removal, as well as nitrification and de-nitrification where needed, without circulation of activated sludge. The process is simple, robust, and requires minimal operator intervention. Wastewater is introduced into a single or multiple-stage system (depending on whether Nitrogen removal is required), each of which contains the suitable volume of biomass carriers.

The MBBR configuration is extremely well suited for a wide range of applications: from pre-treatment of industrial wastewater, to full treatment of municipal wastewater to the most stringent effluent requirements, as a stand alone solution or as a polishing of existing solutions such as lagoons.

In the IFAS configuration utilizes the complex interactions between a bio-film on the biomass carriers and suspended biomass in the activated sludge. This co-existence creates a specialized and highly concentrated nitrifying bio-film on the biomass carriers, acting simultaneously with the organic carbon oxidation by the activated sludge. This process principle is to introduce biomass carriers into the activated sludge, thereby allowing the activated sludge to remove most of the BOD, while allowing the biofilm to develop a microbiological population that oxidizes ammonium compounds.

The IFAS configuration is particularly well suited for retrofitting existing plants in order to add nitrification capacity, as well as increasing carbonaceous BOD removal, without any additional tank volume. This configuration can also be utilized in newly designed plants.