LAB SCALE SEQUENCING BATCH REACTOR CONSTRUCTION AND CHARACTERIZATION FOR DYNAMIC MODELLING WITH ACTIVATED SLUDGE MODEL

Activated sludge wastewater treatment is one of the most commonly used domestic wastewater treatment methods. Modelling and simulation of the treatment process allow for a deeper insight into, and a better understanding of the system, enabling a better control of the treatment facility and high quality effluent production. The characterization of the system is crucial for getting accurate simulation results that correctly represent the studied system. In this paper we present the construction details of a laboratory-scale activated sludge sequencing batch reactor (SBR), and we provide a step-by-step description of the methodology used for wastewater and system characterization with the aim of process modelling and simulation. As the Activated Sludge Model No. 3 (ASM3) has been chosen for later modelling and simulation work, the fractionation of the wastewater was done such way to finally obtain the ASM3 state variables.