Conventional anaerobic digestion models used in wastewater treatment plants suffer from inaccuracies due to the limited consideration given to hydrodynamics within the digester tank. A solution to this is to combine computational fluid dynamics simulations with anaerobic models. This paper introduces a novel methodology in the form of a software toolbox that implements the standard anaerobic digestion model no.1 in C++ and can interface with particle-based Lagrangian simulations. This method provides significantly more insights into the biochemical conversion process by accounting for the impact of the hydrodynamics on the biochemical reactions. The paper presents the background of the method along with a conceptual and numerical verification. It also presents a case study of a 3D lab scale digester comparing the results from the solver with the standard anaerobic digestion model. This integrated approach can be used by operators and designers for optimisations and also for predictive modelling.
Keywords: Anaerobic digestion modelling; Computational fluid dynamics; Integrated modelling; Smoothed particle hydrodynamics; Wastewater treatment.
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