Advanced Hands-On Workshop on Whole Wastewater Treatment Plant Modeling

Saturday, October 18, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm
1 day, 0.6 CEUs

Due to the hands-on nature of this workshop, all attendees should bring a lap top computer.

This hands-on workshop will give deeper insights into the interactions between the different process units (e.g. activated sludge part and sludge treatment line with reject water going back to the water line) to allow better plant operation from a plant-wide perspective. Beside an overview about different modeling approaches, the hands-on course will provide ample opportunities to collect knowledge and create the experience to use this innovative tool for plant optimization.

The Hands-on part is followed by a session where the results are synthesized and conclusions are drawn. The goal is to come to conclusions about the strengths and weaknesses of the various approaches to give guidance to the North American modeling community and to identify further research and training needs. A moderated discussion to compare different approaches and to provide feed-back to the expert groups and companies involved.

The workshop provides information on the following topics: overview of different modeling approaches (“supermodels” versus interfaced models); available process unit models; and, typical data needs and pitfalls of whole-plant modeling.

The hands-on exercises cover: A) Model selection / building including: what model is appropriate for which task; what level of detail is required; and, what kind of data has to be provided?

By modeling different scenarios for the plant under evaluation the participants will see the full benefit of whole plant modeling. They will get enough experience to use it in their own daily work and will be aware of possible pitfalls. Whole-plant modeling allows optimizing processes, which are influenced by other process units of the plant. Typical whole plant scenarios are:
• To optimize the nitrogen removal capacity the reject water coming from the digester has to be taken into account. Buffering of this N-rich water and a controlled return or separate treatment can help the plant to fulfill the effluent requirements.
• Plant-wide modeling allows evaluating the impact of the primary clarifiers for an optimal solution depending on the objectives (e.g. maximize Denitrification potential or biogas production).
•  Changing the sludge retention time has a big impact on the effluent quality but also on the aeration costs and the biogas production.
• Since sludge disposal gets more and more attention, the handling of inert solids is of major interest during plant optimization.

The selected hands-on exercises will highlight the benefits of whole plant modeling and will be compared in terms of nutrient removal capacity, sludge production, biogas production and energy consumption. Every attendee will get the support he needs to solve the exercises. Participants have to bring their own laptops. To create the best benefit for the participants the exercises will be given in parallel with the most commonly used simulator packages: BioWin, GPS-X, SIMBA, WEST. Thanks to an agreement with the supplying companies full access to the simulators during the workshop is ensured. This way the audience will gain an excellent overview about available software as well as different modeling approaches as supported by the simulator packages. The attendees will be informed in advance how to best get access to their individual software installation.

Chair
Leiv Rieger, Université Laval

Co-Chair
Bruce R. Johnson, CH2M HILL

Speakers
John B. Copp, Primodal, Inc.
Peter A. Vanrolleghem, Université Laval
Andrew R. Shaw, Black & Veatch
Daniel A. Nolasco, NOLASCO & Associates
Imre Takács, EnviroSim Associates, Ltd.
Oliver Schraa, Hydromantis, Inc.
Jens Alex, Ifak E.V. Magdeburg
Youri Amerlinck, Most for Water NV