07 Physical Chemical Reactors

Physical chemical (physchem) process units are frequently used along with bioreactors in WWTPs. Common physchem processes include but not limited to:

1. Final Clarifier;

2. Primary Clarifier;

3. Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF); and

4. Filtration.

The "unit_procs/physchem.py" is a collection of the physical chemical process definitions. So fart, only the "final_clarifier" class is available.

The "final_clarifier" is defined as a "splitter" that does not have identical wastewater constituents among all three branches.

In order to simplify the current design of PooPyLab, the solids-liquid separation in the "final_clarifier" is temporarily modelled as a "perfect" process, meaning the clarifier will divide the total mass of inlet solids as per the capture rate set by the user. The captured solids will be at the sidestream outlet branch (underflow). And the residual TSS will be at the mainstream outlet branch (overflow). The user is supposed to provide a reasonable solids capture rate either based on the overflow rate/solids loading rate or actual performance data.

The underflow and overflow TSS will be calculated during a simulation. Unrealistic underflow TSS will trigger warning message but would not stop the simulation. Future update of the "final_clarifier" class will include the actual settling model.

The classes for primary clarifiers, DAFs, filtration will be added following the above philosophy for the final clarifiers.