Abstract: A novel Anaerobic Digestion Model No.1 based dispersive model was developed to simulate the upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor (UASB), in which both hydrodynamics and bio-dynamics were taken into account. The partial differential equations in the model was solved by finite difference method in Matlab. A tracer study and two loading-shock experiments were used to validate the reactors hydrodynamics and bio-dynamics, respectively. The simulated data match the experimental data very well. Besides, the developed model can reflect the reactors status at different heights, which makes it possible to give early warnings in abnormal situations.

Key words: upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor (UASB), hydrodynamics, bio-dynamics, anaerobic model No.1