Mathematical modeling of Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket reactor in domestic wastewater treatment

This paper introduces a dynamic model to adequately describe an Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) reactor. Some available models of a UASB reactor are discussed in order to modify their drawbacks and propose a new improved model with less complexity and more reliability. The developed model is a combination of two recent models introduced in Sweden. According to this model, a UASB rector is divided hydraulically into three compartments with integration of a kinetic model. Simulations are performed to investigate the validity of the developed model which indicates a good agreement with experimental data. Moreover, the developed model appears to be sensitive to variation of hydraulic and kinetic parameters through sensitivity analysis.