Calibration and validation of a model describing complete autotrophic nitrogen removal in a granular SBR system

BACKGROUND: A validated model describing the nitritation-anammox process in a granular sequencing batch reactor (SBR) system is an important tool for: a) design of future experiments and b) prediction of process performance during optimization, while applying process control, or during system scale-up. RESULTS: A model was calibrated using a step-wise procedure customized for the specific needs of the system. The important steps in the procedure were initialization, steady-state and dynamic calibration, and validation. A fast and effective initialization approach was developed to approximate pseudo steady-state in the biofilm system. For oxygen mass transfer coefficient (kLa) estimation, long-term data, removal efficiencies, and the stoichiometry of the reactions were used. For the dynamic calibration a pragmatic model fitting approach was used - in this case an iterative Monte Carlo based screening of the parameter space proposed by Sin et al. (2008) - to find the best fit of the model to dynamic data. Finally, the calibrated model was validated with an independent data set. CONCLUSION: The presented calibration procedure is the first customized procedure for
this type of system and is expected to contribute to achieve a fast and effective model calibration, an important enabling tool for various biochemical engineering design, control and operation problems.