Wastewater treatment by Sequenced Batch Reactor (SBR) is a very versatile technology. Reaction and settling processes are carried out in the same reactor, allowing a highly configurable and adaptable wastewater treatment system. Our research group has been working since year 2000 with SBR configurations for removal of organic matter, nitrogen and phosphorus. We have 15 years of expertise in SBR configurations for Enhanced Biological Phosphorus Removal (EBPR). Classic Ana/Aer configuration for P-removal and novel Ana/Anox/Aer or Ana/Anox cycles have been widely tested in different projects.

Nitrogen removal is also another focus of interest in our research. We have expertise of SBR operation for nitrification, denitrification, nitritation and denitritation. Nitritation in SBR operation can be maintained using our properly designed controllers which use as on-line monitored variable oxygen uptake rate (OUR), DO profile or ammonium concentration.

In other projects we designed novel combined SBR configurations, for example one SBR with autotrophic biomass for nitritation under aerobic conditions and another SBR for denitritation by denitrifying PAO under Ana/Anox/Aer configuration.

Finally, modelling and simulation tools are used to describe SBR operation under different operational conditions. We have developed model-based design of optimal SBR configurations for a given wastewater including the evaluation of robustness again disturbances in the wastewater composition.