Modeling and data assimilation applied to wastewater treatment plants

by Narjes Kandil (IMT)

Thursday Oct 23, 2025, 2:00 PM → 4:00 PM Europe/Paris

Johnson

We propose a simplified model describing nitrogen removal in wastewater treatment plants (WWTP). We consider an activated sludge WWTP, where the succession of aerobic, anoxic and anaerobic phases are governed by the switching of the aeration. These different phases allow for different biochemical processes to remove the major pollutants. Different aeration control schemes are studied with the objective to minimize the total power consumption i.e. aeration time under a given regulatory threshold for ammonium concentration. The process is described by an Ordinary Differential Equations (ODE) system, where the aeration is a source term. This system is calibrated with real data in order to obtain relevant values for the parameters.