On-line monitoring and control of a biological denitrification process for drinking-water treatment

Online monitoring and control of the biological denitrification process in a cell recyle membrane reactor has been developed and implemented at laboratory scale. The system has been tested with a real groundwater contaminated with nitrate. It is shown that a simple feedforward control strategy that adjusts the feed rate of the carbon source to maintain the optimum inlet carbon/nitrate ratio value is effective at reducing both nitrate and nitrite concentrations in the treated water below the maximum admissible values.