Process Engineering Ia
Goal
This course spans over the whole of the autumn semester with 2h/wk lectures time.
The purpose of the course is to study the fundamental concepts of biological processes and to apply them to wastewater treatment engineering. At the end of this course you should be able to evaluate existing wastewater treatment plants and future designs using your basic process understanding, mathematical modeling tools, and knowledge obtained from the current literature. You should be able to apply and recognize the limits of the kinetic models which have been developed to simulate these systems.
The course is the prerequisite for attending the companion project-based course Process Engineering Ib (102-0217-01L).
Course objectives
By the end of the course, students should be able to do the following:
- Basic engineering calculations. Draw and label flowcharts for wastewater treatment processes; carry out design calculations for these processes; write and analytically solve mass balances for simple processes (e.g., single tank activated sludge or biofilm system).
- Process microbiology and biochemistry. Describe the significant differences between the metabolisms of different bacteria; define and estimate process stoichiometry and kinetics for bacterial conversions from literature data; calculate the Gibbs free energy of reactions; describe how kinetic parameters could be estimated from data available in the literature or measured in laboratory experiments.
- Advanced wastewater treatment. Explain basic principles of nutrient removal processes and required process conditions; describe and evaluate different flow charts for biological nutrient removal systems; evaluate the influence of mass transfer limitations on the performance of biofilm reactors; evaluate the required aeration capacity; describe processes and microorganisms in anaerobic wastewater treatment and evaluate important process parameters.
- Computation. Use hand calculation, spreadsheets (EXCEL), and a numerical modeling tool (SUMO) to solve mass balances in activated sludge and biofilm reactors.