TY - JOUR
T1 - Activated Sludge Rheology
T2 - A critical review on data collection and modelling
AU - Ratkovich, Nicolas Rios
AU - Horn, Willi
AU - Helmus, Frank
AU - Rosenberger, Sandra
AU - Naessens, Wouter
AU - Nopens, Ingmar
AU - Bentzen, Thomas Ruby
PY - 2013/2
Y1 - 2013/2
N2 - Rheological behaviour is an important fluid property that severely impacts its flow behaviour and many aspects related to this. In the case of activated sludge, the apparent viscosity has an influence on e.g. pumping, hydrodynamics, mass transfer rates, sludge-water separation (settling and filtration). It therefore is an important property related to process performance, including process economics. To account for this, rheological behaviour is being included in process design, necessitating its measurement. However, measurements and corresponding protocols in literature are quite diverse, leading to varying results and conclusions. In this paper, a vast amount of papers are critically reviewed with respect to this and important flaws are highlighted with respect to rheometer choice, rheometer settings and measurement protocol. The obtained rheograms from experimental efforts have frequently been used to build viscosity models. However, this is not that straightforward and a lot of errors can be detected with respect to good modelling practice, including fair model selection criteria, qualitative parameter estimations and proper model validation. These important steps are however recurrently violated, severely affecting the model reliability and predictive power. This is illustrated with several examples. In conclusion, dedicated research is required to improve the rheological measurements and the models derived from them. At this moment, there is no guidance with respect to proper rheological measurements. Moreover, the rheological models are not very trustworthy and remain very “black box”. More insight in the physical background needs 30 to be gained. A model-based approach with dedicated experimental data collection is the key to address this.
AB - Rheological behaviour is an important fluid property that severely impacts its flow behaviour and many aspects related to this. In the case of activated sludge, the apparent viscosity has an influence on e.g. pumping, hydrodynamics, mass transfer rates, sludge-water separation (settling and filtration). It therefore is an important property related to process performance, including process economics. To account for this, rheological behaviour is being included in process design, necessitating its measurement. However, measurements and corresponding protocols in literature are quite diverse, leading to varying results and conclusions. In this paper, a vast amount of papers are critically reviewed with respect to this and important flaws are highlighted with respect to rheometer choice, rheometer settings and measurement protocol. The obtained rheograms from experimental efforts have frequently been used to build viscosity models. However, this is not that straightforward and a lot of errors can be detected with respect to good modelling practice, including fair model selection criteria, qualitative parameter estimations and proper model validation. These important steps are however recurrently violated, severely affecting the model reliability and predictive power. This is illustrated with several examples. In conclusion, dedicated research is required to improve the rheological measurements and the models derived from them. At this moment, there is no guidance with respect to proper rheological measurements. Moreover, the rheological models are not very trustworthy and remain very “black box”. More insight in the physical background needs 30 to be gained. A model-based approach with dedicated experimental data collection is the key to address this.
KW - Rheology
KW - Activated Sludge
KW - Apparent Viscosity
KW - Rheometer
KW - Measurement Protocol
KW - Good Modelling Practice
KW - Membrane Bioreactors
KW - Rheology
KW - Activated Sludge
KW - Apparent Viscosity
KW - Rheometer
KW - Measurement Protocol
KW - Good Modelling Practice
KW - Membrane Bioreactors
U2 - 10.1016/j.watres.2012.11.021
DO - 10.1016/j.watres.2012.11.021
M3 - Journal article
SN - 0043-1354
VL - 47
SP - 463
EP - 482
JO - Water Research
JF - Water Research
IS - 2
ER -