MODELING AND CONTROL OF WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANTS

Objectives

Increasing demands on effluent quality and increasing loads in combination with shortage of land area call for an improved control and optimization of wastewater treatment plants. Applied research in automatic control is one important tool in achieving an overall high plant performance. An improved control and optimization of wastewater treatment plants lead to an increased pollutant removal, a reduced need for chemicals and energy savings.

We are developing control and estimation strategies for wastewater treatment plants. In particular, the activated sludge process is studied. A key goal is to develop and evaluate control strategies which can be of practical use in improving the performance of the plants. In several projects we develop methods for reducing the energy consumption without reducing the effluent quality (sometimes the effluent quality even improves!).

The following researchers in our group perform research in applying methods from automatic control to wastewater treatment technologies:

We are currently leading a regional research consortium ("VA-kluser Mälardalen") with participants from five Universities, one Research Institute, and six municipal wastewater treatment plants.
Homepage for Mälardalsklustret (Swedish with an English summary)

During 2004-2006, we participated in the research program HIPCON which was founded by the EC 6th Framework program.

We have been a partner in the research program Sustainable Urban Water Management, supported by MISTRA.

Publications

Our publication list is here.

General achievements:

1. Four Ph.D. theses have been completed in this research area:
2. The most current licentiate thesis is
  • Interaction Analysis and Control of Bioreactors for Nitrogen Removal by Björn Halvarsson (Dec 2007). The thesis is available here (pdf-format).
3. A JAVA based simulator of the activated sludge process have been developed. The JASS simulator was 2005 extended to also simulate Biological Phosphorus (BioP) removal. Go to the JASS homepage.
4. A course in Wastewater treatment has been developed for the Master of Science program in Aquatic and Environmental Engineering (in Swedish). The course has been given once a year since 1996. In an evaluation 2006, the course was selected as the best ranked course of all courses evaluated by the Faculty of Science and Technology at Uppsala University.
5. We have developed a three days course entitled "Control of wastewater treatment plants" which is given (in Swedish) for wastewater treatment plant personnel. The course has been given yearly since 1999. See further Svenskt Vatten.
6. Every year, several master theses projects are completed in the area of water and wastewater technologies by students from the Aquatic and Environmental Engineering program, see master theses. We regularly supervise master students, see Supervised master students 2004-2007.

Some older examples (which focus on control and modelling aspects) are:

  • Applications of Coupling Analysis on Bioreactor Models, Björn Halvarsson (2003). The thesis is available here (pdf-format).
  • Design of a simulator for the activated sludge process - JASS v3.0, Gustav Grusell (2002). The thesis is available here (pdf-format).
  • Automatic Control of an Activated Sludge Process in a Wastewater Treatment Plant - a Benchmark Study, Anders Rehnström (2000). The thesis is available here (pdf-format, 2500 kB).
  • Efficient Control of Wastewater Treatment Plants - a Benchmark study , Jenny Singman (1999). The thesis is available here(pdf-format).
  • JASS - A java based activated sludge process simulator, Pär Samuelsson (1998).
  • An introduction to biased linear regression, Magnus Mossberg (1995).
  • A simulator for an activated sludge pilot plant, Joerg Luttmer (1995).
  • A control and supervision system for an activated sludge pilot plant, Jouko Latomaa (1994).

Conducted and current research topics:

  1. Design and evaluation of Innovative Information Systems for Wastewater treatment systems.
  2. Development of control strategies for the wastewater treatment processes.
  3. Design of a simulators for the activated sludge process.
  4. Economic operation of the activated sludge process.

Most of the older experimental work (92-97) has been performed in a pilot-scale plant at the main municipal wastewater treatment plant, Kungsängsverket, Uppsala. See description.