Modelling population dynamics of denitrifying phosphorus accumulating organisms in activated sludge

In this paper a kinetic model for simulating population dynamics is developed. The aim was to simulate anoxic and aerobic phosphorus accumulating organisms dynamics in a lab-scale sequencing batch reactor (SBR) operating under different conditions. Denitrifying phosphorus accumulating organisms (DNPAOs) successfully competed in almost all the simulated operational conditions tested. Using this model, the anoxic energy disadvantage of DNPAOs was not as strong as using metabolic models. The model was able to predict reasonably well N, P and acetate profiles in the SBR with only a minor modification of the ASM2d default values of the parameters.