Abstract: Multi-environment reactors are an innovative alternative to simplify conventional Biological Nutrient Removal (BNR) treatment trains as they are more compact and can adapt to existing quality requirements. However, maintaining the desired environmental conditions in different zones of the reactor implies the need for deflectors or mixing devices that generate a complex hydrodynamic behaviour. Therefore, to ensure the desired biological efficiency, hydraulic optimization is essential. For that purpose, a hydrodynamic optimization methodology combining Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and dimensional analysis is developed and presented in this work. The methodology is applied to AnoxAn, an anaerobic-anoxic reactor for BNR. The CFD model is constructed using the OpenFOAM® open source toolbox and has been already validated in a previous work by the authors. Different features as hydraulic separation, dead volumes, short-circuiting or mixing performance are evaluated and main results show that configurations of AnoxAn with high slenderness have the most efficient hydrodynamic behaviour.

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