THE CFD MODELING IN BIOREACTOR TRACER STUDIES

Abstract

This paper presents the effects of dispersion on predicting longitudinal tracer concentration profiles in an activated sludge bioreactor located at the Wschód Waste-Water Treatment Plant in Gdansk. The aim of this study has been to use the one-dimensional advection dispersion equation to simulate a non-active substance flow (based on the measured tracer concentration). The simulation results were compared with those obtained in the traditional tanks-in-series approach, commonly used in designing biological reactors. The dispersion coefficient was calculated from a statistical formula based on differences in the tracer concentration distributions at two sampling points. The study has shown that the numerical simulation using the one-dimensional tracer migration equation yields better results than the tanks-in-series model in predicting longitudinal tracer concentration profiles. This paper is an introduction to the study of reactive substances in activated sludge bioreactors.