Author(s)

TAMAS KARCHES

Abstract

Application of mass balance models are widespread in designing wastewater treatment processes, where the emphasis is on the biokinetics and transport processes of the biomass. Reactor hydrodynamics is often idealised applying completely stirred tank reactor (CSTR) or plug flow reactor (PFR) based models. If internal recirculation (IR) is required to be applied for pre-denitrification, these models predict the mass transfer appropriately, but hydrodynamics are not simulated and thus the reactor models remain unchanged. In this research the effect of IR on reactor models was investigated by introducing virtual reactor number applied in the simulation system. GPS-X 6.5 commercial tool was used to perform the calculations and the model was calibrated by field measurement. After the evaluation of the results it could have been seen that in basins with plug flow the application of IR did not modify the reactor model significantly, whereas in CSTRs the virtual reactor numbers shall be modified.

Keywords

internal recirculation, mass balance modelling, reactor models, wastewater treatment