Plant-wide modelling in wastewater treatment: showcasing experiences using the Biological Nutrient Removal Model

Plant-wide modelling can be considered an appropriate approach to represent the current complexity in water resource recovery facilities, reproducing all known phenomena in the different process units. Nonetheless, novel processes and new treatment schemes are still being developed and need to be fully incorporated in these models. This work presents a short chronological overview of some of the most relevant plant-wide models for wastewater treatment, as well as the authors' experience in plant-wide modelling using the general model BNRM (Biological Nutrient Removal Model), illustrating the key role of general models (also known as supermodels) in the field of wastewater treatment, both for engineering and research.