Mass balance-based plant-wide wastewater treatment plant models – Part 1: Biodegradability of wastewater organics under anaerobic conditions

Abstract

From an experimental and theoretical investigation of the continuity of wastewater organic chemical oxygen demand (COD)
and nitrogen (N) compounds along the link connecting the primary settling tank (PST) and anaerobic digester (AD), it was
found that the primary sludge (PS) characteristics, viz. the biodegradable and unbiodegradable soluble and particulate COD
and N component concentrations, need to be calculated from mass balances around the PST so that the organic and N concentrations
conform to continuity principles, and the influent unbiodegradable particulate organics determined from response of
the activated sludge (AS) system are also unbiodegradable under AD conditions.

Water SA Vol.32 (3) 2006: pp.269-275