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Development of an interactive tool for biological models into the microalgae-based wastewater treatment

A. Sánchez-Zurano1, J.L. Guzmán2, F.G. Acién1, J.M. Fernández-Sevilla1

1Dep. of Chemical Engineering, University of Almería, Ctra. Sacramento s/n, ceiA3, CIESOL, Almería, 04120, Spain

2Dep. of Informatics, University of Almería, Ctra. Sacramento s/n, ceiA3, CIESOL, Almería, 04120, Spain

Microalgae-based wastewater treatment process is one of the most promising technology for the advanced treatment and nutrient recovery of wastewater, and it has attracted more and more attention in the recent years 1. The biological models for this type of processes are very complex to be analyzed because of very different phenomena, variables and parameters are occurring simultaneously. In recent years, interactive tools and virtual laboratories have been presented as tools that allow to simulate highly complex models and control systems quickly and easily. Especially, the interactive tools provide a high potential allowing a real-time interaction between the modification of parameters and the visualization of results 2.

This work presents a novel simulation tool to understand and to analyze biological models for wastewater treatment processes using microalgae-bacteria consortia. The model already included into the tool has been validated at controlled conditions simulating outdoor ones, it being useful to simulate real outdoor cultures. The major contribution of the proposed tool is that these models can be easily and interactively simulated and compared. The tool allows to simulate biological models only considering microalgae or including the microalgae-bacteria consortium. Moreover, the simulations can be done only using the solar radiation contribution or by adding the environmental parameters. Furthermore, the effects of the wastewater properties (nitrogen, phosphorous, chemical oxygen demand, etc) on microalgae and bacteria activity can be evaluated. The interactive simulations can be performed for selected days as representative of the different year seasons.

Figure 1. Main screen of the interactive tool.

Acknowledgements. This work has been partially funded by the following projects: DPI2017 84259-C2- 1-R (financed by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and EU-ERDF funds), the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under Grant Agreement No. 727874 SABANA and the PURASOL project CTQ2017-84006-C3-3-R (financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness) . As well as being supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education through the National FPU Program (grant number FPU16/05996).

F.G. Acién, C. Gómez-Serrano, M.M. Morales-Amaral, J.M. Fernández-Sevilla, E. Molina-Grima, Wastewater treatment using microalgae: how realistic a contribution might it be to significant urban wastewater treatment?, Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 100 (2016) 9013–9022. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-016-7835-7.

2 J.L. Guzmán, D.E. Rivera, S. Dormido, M. Berenguel, An interactive software tool for system identification, Adv. Eng. Softw. 45 (2012) 115–123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advengsoft.2011.09.013.