Use of activate sludge model No. 3 and Bio-P module for simulating five-stage step-feed enhanced biological phosphorous removal process

The ASM3 with EAWAG Bio-P Module (ASM3+P) was used for simulating a five-stage step-feed Enhanced Biological Phosphorous Removal (fsEBPR) process and its applicability was compared with the ASM2d. The fsEBPR process was predicted to achieve effective nitrogen and phosphorus removal from the wastewater even with low C/N and C/P ratios without additional carbon sources. Application of the ASM3+P on this configuration will be an ample chance for expanding the new models in the activated Sludge process. Sensitivity analysis and parameter estimation were conducted with the ASM2d and the ASM3+P prior to model application so that calibration of the models could focus only on the sensitive parameters. The ASM2d was less successful for predicting the process behavior. Moreover, the ASM2d required 6 times more computation time than that for the AMS3+P due to its decay-regeneration model structure. To confirm the applicability of parameters determined from the pilot-scale reactor operating results, those were tested on the field data without further correction. Only the ASM3+P successfully predicted nitrogen and phosphate variations in the full-scale plants. Overall examination of simulation results using the pilot and full-scale data has led to the conclusion that the ASM3+P is better than the ASM2d for simulating fsEBPR processes.