A kinetic model for multicomponent wastewater substrate removal by partial ozonation and subsequent biodegradation

A kinetic model for multicomponent substrate removal by the partial ozonation process is presented. The model consists of a component describing the co-evolution of COD and BOD as a function of ozone dosage and a mass transfer based component describing ozone dosage as a function of time. A multiple zero order reaction concept is used to describe the multicomponent kinetic behaviour. The model has been verified experimentally by comparing stoichiometric ratio and ozone reaction rate of conventional partial ozonation processes and partial ozonation processes with intermittent biodegradation. The model is found to effectively describe the change in stoichiometry and reaction rate that typically occurs during ozonation processes. Intermittent biodegradation is found to have no effect on the instantaneous stoichiometric ratio or the instantaneous ozone reaction rate. This implicates that intermittent BOD removal results in an additional decrease in required ozonation time and ozone demand compared to the conventional partial ozonation process and in addition to the expected decrease resulting from BOD removal.