Extended activated sludge model no. 1 (ASM1) for simulating biodegradation process using bacterial technology

Phosphorus is one of the most important nutrients required to support various kinds of biodegradation processes. As this particular nutrient is not included in the activated sludge model no. 1 （ASM1）, this study extended this model in order to determine the fate of phosphorus during the biodegradation processes. When some of the kinetics parameters are modified using observed data from the restoration project of the Xuxi River in Wuxi City, China, from August 25 to 31 in 2009, the extended model shows excellent results. In order to obtain optimum values of coefficients of nitrogen and phosphorus, the mass fraction method was used to ensure that the final results were reasonable and practically relevant. The temporal distribution of the data calculated with the extended ASM1 approximates that of the observed data.

Denitrifying phosphorus removal in a step-feed CAST with alternating anoxic-oxic operational strategy

A bench-scale cyclic activated sludge technology （CAST） was operated to study the biological phosphorus removal performance and a series of batch tests was carried out to demonstrate the accumulation of denitrifying polyphosphate-accumulating organisms （DNPAOs） in CAST system. Under all operating conditions, step-feed CAST with enough carbon sources in influent had the highest nitrogen and phosphorus removal efficiency as well as good sludge settling performance. The average removal rate of COD, NH4^＋-N, PO4^3--P and total nitrogen （TN） was 88.2%, 98.7%, 97.5% and 92.1%, respectively. The average sludge volume index （SVI） was 133 mL/g. The optimum anaerobic/aerobic/anoxic （AOA） conditions for the cultivation of DNPAOs could be achieved by alternating anoxic/oxic operational strategy, thus a significant denitrifying phosphorus removal occurred in step-feed CAST. The denitrification of NO^x--N completed quickly due to step-feed operation and enough carbon sources, which could enhance phosphorus release and further phosphorus uptake capability of the system. Batch tests also proved that polyphosphate-accumulating organisms （PAOs） in the step-feed process had strong denitrifying phosphorus removal capacity. Both nitrate and nitrite could be used as electron acceptors in denitrifying phosphorus removal. Low COD supply with step-feed operation strategy would favor DNPAOs accumulation.

Applying real-time control to enhance the performance of nitrogen removal in CAST system

A bench-scale reactor（72 L） red with domestic sewage, was operated more than 3 months with three operation modes： traditional mode, modified mode and real-time control mode, so as to evaluate effects of the operation mode on the system performance and to develop a feasible control strategy. Results obtained from fixed-time control study indicate that the variations of the pH and oxidation-reduction potential（ORP） profiles can represent dynamic characteristics of system and the cycle sequences can be controlled and optimized by the control points on the pH and ORP profiles. A control strategy was, therefore, developed and applied to real-time control mode. Compared with traditional mode, the total nitrogen（TN） removal can be increased by approximately 16% in modified mode and a mean TN removal of 92% was achieved in real-time control mode. Moreover, approximately 12.5% aeration energy was saved in real- time control mode. The result of this study shows that the performance of nitrogen removal was enhanced in modified operation mode. Moreover, the real-time control made it possible to optimize process operation and save aeration energy.