Optimization of an Empirical Model for Microorganism-Immobilized Media to Predict Nitrogen Removal Efficiency

The purpose of this study was to develop a model to predict the total nitrogen (T-N) concentration in treated wastewater effluent when microorganism-immobilized media are applied. The operational data for this study were obtained using synthetic wastewater and actual wastewater within a lab-scale reactor. The organic matter removal, nitrification, and denitrification rates were 81.8, 87, and 82.9%, respectively. These rates adequately satisfied the effluent water quality standard. The observed parameters from the lab-scale reactor operation were applied to develop the optimization model, and the model showed correlation coefficients as 0.9785 and 0.9811 for nitrification and denitrification efficiencies, respectively. The model predicted that T-N concentration could be reduced to