BODAC®’s activated carbon granules at Nieuwater have been working miraculously well. Though meant for ultra-pure water synthesis, its capabilities in all sorts of organic micropollutant removal have not gone unnoticed. Dr. Amanda Larasati et al. describe in a new  paper in Chemical Engineering Journal what core elements make the technology work, and what at we need to know to apply Nieuwater’s knowledge elsewhere.

Unexpected success
It’s been well over a decade since the Puurwaterfabriek introduced the world to BODAC® – the biologically, oxygen-dosed, activated carbon granules floating in big reactors over at the wastewater treatment system in Nieuw-Amsterdam, Emmen. That these bacteria would be able to remove so many of the emerging pollutants, keeping the waters and downstream filters clean for so long it not something anyone would have foreseen.

BODAC® was originally designed as a pre-treatment step for the reverse osmosis membranes producing ultra-pure water for industry. The concept combines two mechanisms in one bed: adsorption of contaminants onto granular activated carbon, and simultaneous biodegradation of those same compounds by a living biofilm growing on the carbon surface. Feed the bed with oxygen, and the microbial community stays active and regenerates the carbon from within.

“Other than serving as a membrane pre-treatment step, the filter can also remove organic micropollutants,” says Larasati, “we found over the long-term monitoring is that it works on a wide range of compounds than that.” Pharmaceuticals and their residues regularly make it through conventional wastewater treatment but can be removed with high efficiency in this method.

What makes this system so robust and flexible? Larasati has investigated that question both at pilot scale and alongside the full-scale installation, and has now published her findings in a new research paper in the Chemical Engineering Journal. Three elements stand out.

A unique microbial community, simple sieving, and a new model
The first is the biofilm itself. Central to BODAC®’s longevity is the living community that colonizes the carbon granules — both the stage for the technology and the engine of its performance.  Larasati and her co-authors mapped the thickness of  the granule biofilms and found a distinctly organic character to the outer layers, which influences how different compounds interact with the surface. A core set of bacterial groups appears responsible for allowing BODAC® to flourish: nitrifying and manganese-oxidising bacteria dominate the granules consistently.

“After backwashing, the community on the granules stays the same composition every time,” says Larasati. That resilience is also what makes the granules so dependable over the 12-year timeframe studied: the biology is not fragile, and – importantly – does not drift unpredictably.

Understanding the biology is one thing; the second element of the study concerns the engineering around it. Downstream of BODAC® in Nieuw-Amsterdam, water passes through reverse osmosis membranes. Upstream, ultrafiltration has been used as a pre-treatment step. But Larasati et al. found this is by no means a requirement for the bacteria to do their work. “A much simpler drum sieve does well,” she says. “The BODAC® still removes more than 80% of the organic micropollutants of interest.” For water reuse applications where ultra-pure output is not the goal, this significantly simplifies  the treatment and lowers its cost.

The third and final element of the study was predicting the BODAC® workings for designing new reactors. Larasati: “The long-term data from the Nieuwater has provided a rare, empirically grounded foundation for what the technology is capable of. We used that data from the pilot to estimate the required size of future reactors, as well as the conditions needed for the process, given the pollutants and their concentrations at the inlet.”

Serious candidate for broader deployment
Taken together, the work reframes BODAC® from the remarkable curiosity of a single industrial plant into a serious candidate for broader deployment in water reuse – biologically robust, surprisingly versatile, and well-suited as a quaternary treatment step or in applications well beyond its original industrial context.

Read more:
Larasati, Amanda, Daniela De Cata, Leone Mazzeo, et al. 2026. “Modelling and Pilot-Scale Testing of Aged Biological Activated Carbon Filters Predict the Optimal Contact Time for Micropollutant Removal from WWTP Effluents.” Chemical Engineering Journal 529 (February): 172663. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2026.172663.

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