User-Friendly Mathematical Model for the Design of Sulfate Reducing Fed Bioreactors
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 135, Issue 3
Abstract
This paper presents three steady-state mathematical models for the design of fed gas-lift reactors aimed at biological sulfate reduction to remove sulfate from wastewater. Models 1A and 1B are based on heterotrophic sulfate reducing bacteria (HSRB), while Model 2 is based on autotrophic sulfate reducing bacteria (ASRB) as the dominant group of sulfate reducers in the gas-lift reactor. Once the influent wastewater characteristics are known and the desired sulfate removal efficiency is fixed, all models give explicit mathematical relationships to determine the bioreactor volume and the effluent concentrations of substrates and products. The derived explicit relationships make application of the models very easy, fast, and no iterative procedures are required. Model simulations show that the size of the fed gas-lift reactors aimed at biological sulfate removal from wastewater highly depends on the number and type of trophic groups growing in the bioreactor. In particular, if the biological sulfate reduction is performed in a bioreactor where ASRB prevail, the required bioreactor volume is much smaller than that needed with HSRB. This is because ASRB can out-compete methanogenic archaea (MA) for (assuming sulfate concentrations are not limiting), whereas HSRB do not necessarily out-compete MA due to their dependence on homoacetogenic bacteria (HB) for organic carbon. The reactor sizes to reach the same sulfate removal efficiency by HSRB and ASRB are only comparable when methanogenesis is inhibited. Moreover, model results indicate that acetate supply to the reactor influent does not affect the HSRB biomass required in the reactor, but favors the dominance of MA on HB as a consequence of a lower HB requirement for acetate supply.
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Information & Authors
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Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 135 • Issue 3 • March 2009
Pages: 167 - 175
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: Jun 15, 2007
Accepted: Sep 23, 2008
Published online: Mar 1, 2009
Published in print: Mar 2009
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