Delco Water’s groundwater biological filtration solution, BioFX, is designed to target iron, arsenic, manganese and ammonia, while offering outstanding pre-treatment characteristics to secondary membrane treatment. With no chemical inputs and significantly lower backwash frequencies than alternatives such as greensand filtration, biological filtration provides the groundwork for a more sustainable water industry. As BioFX effectively removes ammonia, excessive chemicals are no longer required to reach breakpoint chlorination, this is a common issue our customers face.

Key Features

  • Pretreatment or Stand Alone Treatment Options

    Beyond the health and aesthetic concerns of iron and manganese contamination, their presence can also cause fouling of other treatment equipment downstream even at low concentrations. The BioFX solution has a consistent history of removing 95%+ of iron and ammonia in over a hundred piloting and full-scale applications. Arsenic removal is aided by co-oxidation and precipitation with biologically oxidized iron. Dissolved manganese removal is more variable with longer seeding timelines. Most installations see substantial manganese removal; however, it is recommended that a second process be included to ensure dissolved manganese removal exceeds application requirements. Delco Water promotes BioFX as a premier pre-treatment step for membrane systems. Even in situations with dissolved manganese in the final filtrate, the biological interaction reduces the manganese bacteria fouling potential, with no installations to date having experienced manganese fouling of downstream membranes.

  • Longer Filtration Cycles

    Our BioFX systems feature longer filtration cycles between backwashes, when compared to conventional technologies. Biological oxidation creates a denser precipitate which is readily filtered and leads to a slower rate of pressure differential increase across the vessel. BioFX filtration cycles are estimated to be ~10x the minimum cycle length of conventional chemically oxidized solutions, such as greensand filtration.

  • Specialized Design & Environmental Consideration

    Delco Water’s BioFX is designed and tailored to North America’s cold environments. BioFX is primarily installed in low water temperature (<5 °C) environments and has proven to be up to the challenge. The modular design, allowing for successive filters to increase contact time and media volume. also allows the solution to adapt to different water sources and water chemistry.

Primary Targeted Constituents

Constituent RO/NF Ultrafiltration NanoFX BioFX
Iron
X
X
X
Manganese
X
X
X
Ammonia
X
X
Arsenic
X
X
Hardness
X
Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC)
X
X
X
Total Organic Carbon (TOC)
X
X
Turbidity
X
X
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS)
X
X
Colour
X
X

Delco Water's BioFx

Delco Water is always working to develop innovative, more efficient, and more sustainable ways to treat water. With BioFX, there are no chemical additions required when treating the water. Ammonia is common in high TDS groundwater, and always poses an issue when using sodium hypochlorite for primary disinfection due to excessive consumption to reach breakpoint chlorination.


Biological filtration is a passive treatment that requires minimal operator involvement and focuses on optimization of the environment. As not all bacteria from water sources are created equally, Delco Water’s BioFX creates the optimal conditions for contaminant-removing bacteria to thrive, and is able to survive elongated shutdown periods.


BioFX can be applied at any scale and is fully customizable to the needs of the client. Modifications of media selection, local dissolved oxygen levels, and other factors are tailored to the locally available bacterial colonies. Our experience and specialization in biological filtration allow our team to provide the most appropriate solution for the client.

water treatment