Calibration and validation of activated sludge model no. 3 for Swiss municipal wastewater

ASM3 was tested against experimental data from aerobic and anoxic batches as well as full-scale experiments from various WWTPs treating Swiss municipal wastewater. A set of kinetic and stoichiometric parameters emerged from these tests. The calibrated ASM3 allows the sludge production and the denitrification capacity to be successfully modeled with a standardized set of parameters. The readily degradable inlet substrate SS,o was estimated from respiration measurements by curve fitting. This contradicts the suggestion of the IAWQ task group that SS,o in ASM3 may be approximated by the total soluble COD as determined by 0.45 μm membrane filtration. Aerobic and anoxic respiration of storage products is insignificant compared to growth on these products.