Wastewater Treatment Process Improvement using Fate Modeling of
Xenobiotic Organic Compounds
Abstract
The presence of Xenobiotic Organic Compounds (XOCs) in municipal
wastewater treatment plants’ effluent raises a global concern due to the
easy consumption of these micropollutants by organisms. The fate of XOCs
removal mechanisms of these compounds remains a challenge in recent
scientific research. This study aimed to create an uncalibrated
mathematical fate model within the professional wastewater modeling
simulation software in a first step that was able to address the fate of
Sulfamethoxazole (SMX), its metabolite, and Nonylphenol ethoxylates
(NPEOs) along with conventional compounds during an activated sludge
process. For the calibration process as a next step, two different case
studies were created with assigning related removal mechanisms to each
group of compounds. In the calibration process, model parameters are
tuned such that the model can best simulate the experimental data using
optimization methods. The validation results showed that the proposed
model successfully simulates the removal of XOCs. Results of sensitivity
analysis showed that the fate model is more sensitive to biodegradation
rate constant than Solid Retention Time (SRT).