Modelling, identification and control of a denitrifying biofilter

Biological denitrification in a fixed bed reactor is a process gaining popu larity in the area of water treatment. The advent of more stringent criteri a on nitrate and nitrite concentrations of treated water (along with the ne ed to control and optimize the addition of a carbon source needed to denitr ify) make the use of dynamical models able to represent the behaviour of th e process not only of interest; it is also compulsory for optimizing contro l. The paper is concerned with the process dynamic modelling, the parameter identification and the control of the fixed bed biofilter with real-life e xperiments. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.