CALAGUA, formed by personnel from the Research Institute of Water and Environmental Engineering of the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the Department of Chemical Engineering of the University of Valencia, has twenty years’ experience in studying the whole range of biological, physical and chemical processes involved in WWTPs

• Biological nutrient removal.
• Primary sludge fermentation.
• Anaerobic sludge digestion.
• Phosphorus recovery in the form of struvite.
• SHARON process for nitrogen removal via nitrite.
• Membrane reactors applied to urban wastewater treatment.
• Nutrient removal by microalgae cultures.

The Group’s fundamental aim is to apply and transfer results to the industrial sector and provide technical assistance for the design, operation and optimisation of urban and industrial WWTPs. Most of the results already transferred by CALAGUA have been obtained from research projects won either in public tenders or financed by business companies or other organisations. This has made it possible to develop the model currently on the market, as well as an automatic parameter calibration device for ASM type models (BioCalibra), urban wastewater membrane analysis, fuzzy logic-based WWTP aeration control, and a control system for nitrification-denitrification processes.

CALAGUA has also developed the DESASS program, a WWTP simulator used by a number of universities and companies involved in the sector. DESASS includes the extended version of our BNRM1 mathematical model, which simulates complete wastewater treatment schemes and considers the effect of different recirculation flows in the overall process.