Application of Agent-Based Modeling to Reveal Competition between PAOs and GAOs in Side-Stream EBPR (S2EBPR) Systems

摘要

The S2EBPR process has been shown to be effective at improving stability of P removal in wastewater. However, previous modeling efforts have not been able to capture the observed benefits of the process. An agent-based modeling approach that included incorporation of staged maintenance followed by decay and sequential internal storage polymer utilization was developed. After calibrating the model to observed data from anaerobic batch test results, it was shown that PAOs were able to maintain activity during extended anaerobic periods, and that GAOs decayed more quickly than PAOs due to differences in internal polymer storage and maintenance energy requirements. The model developed for this research can be used to optimize process operation (e.g., side-stream reactor HRT) and the concepts developed can be used as a framework for improving existing biological process models (e.g., BioWin, GPS-X, SUMO).