Use of Activated Sludge Model No. 3 to Model an Activated Sludge Unit at an Industrial Wastewater Treatment Facility

Abstract

The objective of this research is to (I) introduce the Activated Sludge Models (ASM), (II) examine the validity of Activated Sludge Model No. 3 (ASM 3), (III) apply ASM 3 to a specific industrial activated sludge unit to determine if the model accurately predicts the effluent ammonium concentration, (IV) determine the ammonium concentration sensitivity when stoichiometric parameters are varied, and (V) investigate changes in model inputs to reduce the effluent concentration of ammonium. To achieve the objectives of the paper, this work will (I) review literature pertaining to the Activated Sludge Models, (II) apply Activated Sludge Model No. 3 to example problems from environmental engineering literature, (III) apply ASM 3 to the industrial activated sludge unit to replicate the measured effluent, (IV) change stoichiometric parameters within ASM 3 to determine what occurs to the effluent ammonium concentration, and (V) change input parameters that can be controlled through process control to determine what occurs to the effluent ammonium concentration. Through this work, it was found that ASM 3 can be used for the design of an activated sludge reactor basin that is for BOD removal only and BOD removal with nitrification. ASM 3 can be used to model an ASU at an industrial wastewater treatment facility. The model is sensitive to changes to aerobic yield of heterotrophic biomass (YH, O2) and the yield of autotrophic biomass per NO3-N (YA). For this ASU, the general trend is that if the dissolved oxygen is increased and the SRT is reduced then the effluent ammonium concentration should be reduced.