Search results for "Bioreactor"

Effect of pH and nitrite concentration on nitrite oxidation rate

2011

The effect of pH and nitrite concentration on the activity of the nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB) in an activated sludge reactor has been determined by means of laboratory batch experiments based on respirometric techniques. The bacterial activity was measured at different pH and at different total nitrite concentrations (TNO 2). The experimental results showed that the nitrite oxidation rate (NOR) depends on the TNO 2 concentration independently of the free nitrous acid (FNA) concentration, so FNA cannot be considered as the real substrate for NOB. NOB were strongly affected by low pH values (no activity was detected at pH 6.5) but no inhibition was observed at high pH values (activity wa…

Sulphate-Reducing Laboratory-Scale High-Rate Anaerobic Reactors for Treatment of Metal- and Sulphate-Containing Mine Wastewater

2002

Upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactors were used in this study to evaluate the feasibility of the sulphate-reducing, anaerobic high-rate process to treat metal- and sulphate-containing mining wastewater (MWW). Four simultaneous reactors, inoculated with different inocula (mesophilic granular sludge from two UASB reactors, one treating sugar refinery wastewater and the other board mill wastewater) and operated with different loadings, were for 95 days fed with synthetic feed consisting of glucose and sulphate. In all reactors, 23-72% of sulphate and 12-93% of COD were removed. Subsequently, two reactors were fed with diluted MWW (zinc as the main metal) for 77 days with hydraulic re…

Harvesting Energy from Wastewater Using an Innovative Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor

2015

Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Oenococcus oeni immobilized in different layers of a cellulose/starch gel composite for simultaneous alcoholic and malol…

2013

Abstract The production of a two-layer composite biocatalyst for immobilization of two different microorganisms for simultaneous alcoholic and malolactic fermentation (MLF) of wine in the same bioreactor is reported. The biocatalyst consisted of a tubular delignified cellulosic material (DCM) with entrapped Oenococcus oeni cells, covered with starch gel containing the alcohol resistant and cryotolerant strain Saccharomyces cerevisiae AXAZ-1. The biocatalyst was found effective for simultaneous low temperature alcoholic fermentation resulting to conversion of malic acid to lactic acid in 5 days at 10 °C. Improvement of wine quality compared with wine fermented with S. cerevisiae AXAZ-1 immob…

A probabilistic approach to radiant field modeling in dense particulate systems

2016

Radiant field distribution is an important modeling issue in many systems of practical interest, such as photo-bioreactors for algae growth and heterogeneous photo-catalytic reactors for water detoxification.In this work, a simple radiant field model suitable for dispersed systems showing particle size distributions, is proposed for both dilute and dense two-phase systems. Its main features are: (i) only physical, independently assessable parameters are involved and (ii) its simplicity allows a closed form solution, which makes it suitable for inclusion in a complete photo-reactor model, where also kinetic and fluid dynamic sub-models play a role. A similar model can be derived by making us…

Electrical conductivity as a state indicator for the start-up period of anaerobic fixed-bed reactors.

2016

The aim of this work was to analyse the applicability of electrical conductivity sensors for on-line monitoring the start-up period of an anaerobic fixed-bed reactor. The evolution of bicarbonate concentration and methane production rate was analysed. Strong linear relationships between electrical conductivity and both bicarbonate concentration and methane production rate were observed. On-line estimations of the studied parameters were carried out in a new start-up period by applying simple linear regression models, which resulted in a good concordance between both observed and predicted values. Electrical conductivity sensors were therefore identified as an interesting method for monitori…

Modelling hydrolysis: Simultaneous versus sequential biodegradation of the hydrolysable fractions

2018

Hydrolysis is considered the limiting step during solid waste anaerobic digestion (including co-digestion of sludge and biosolids). Mechanisms of hydrolysis are mechanistically not well understood with detrimental impact on model predictive capability. The common approach to multiple substrates is to consider simultaneous degradation of the substrates. This may not have the capacity to separate the different kinetics. Sequential degradation of substrates is theoretically supported by microbial capacity and the composite nature of substrates (bioaccessibility concept). However, this has not been experimentally assessed. Sequential chemical fractionation has been successfully used to define i…

Ultrasound assisted method to increase soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD) of sewage sludge for digestion

2004

The aim of this study was to clarify the possibilities to increase the amount of soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD) and methane production of sludge using ultrasound technologies with and without oxidising agents. The study was done using multivariate data analyses. The most important factors affected were discovered. Ultrasonically assisted disintegration increased clearly the amount of SCOD of sludge. Also more methane was produced from treated sludge in anaerobic batch assays compared to the sludge with no ultrasonic treatment. Multivariate data analysis showed that ultrasonic power, dry solid content of sludge (DS), sludge temperature and ultrasonic treatment time have the most signi…

Biochemical methane potential (BMP) of solid organic substrates: evaluation of anaerobic biodegradability using data from an international interlabor…

2011

Background: This paper describes results obtained for different participating research groups in an interlaboratory study related to biochemical methane potential (BMP). In this research work, all experimental conditions influencing the test such as inoculum, substrate characteristics and experimental conditions were investigated. The study was performed using four substrates: three positive control substrates (starch, cellulose and gelatine), and one raw biomass material (mung bean) at two different inoculum to substrate ratios (ISR). Results: The average methane yields for starch, cellulose, gelatine and mung bean at ISR of 2 and 1 were 350 ± 33, 350 ± 29, 380 ± 42, 370 ± 36 and 370 ± 35 …

Identification and quantification of microbial populations in activated sludge and anaerobic digestion processes

2014

Eight different phenotypes were studied in an activated sludge process (AeR) and anaerobic digester AnD) in a full-scale wastewater treatment plant by means of fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) and automated FISH quantification software. The phenotypes were ammonia-oxidizing bacteria, nitrite-oxidizing bacteria, denitrifying bacteria, phosphate-accumulating organisms (PAO), glycogen-accumulating organisms (GAO), sulphate-reducing bacteria (SRB), methanotrophic bacteria and methanogenic archaea. Some findings were unexpected: (a) Presence of PAO, GAO and denitrifiers in the AeR possibly due to unexpected environmental conditions caused by oxygen deficiencies or its ability to survive …