Novel method for determination of phenol degradation kinetics

In this study, we proposed a new method for estimating biokinetic parameters in phenol degradation kinetics. The new method relies on the new formulation of q–S relation where degradation rate q is calculated from the changes of substrate concentration S for each time segment during the course of entire degradation, while in the conventional method q is obtained from the slope of the straight line that is given as substrate concentration changes with time in a semi-logarithmic scale. Thus, this new method provided more data points than the conventional method. The q–S relations obtained from the new method and the conventional method were fitted with three inhibitory kinetic models of Haldane, Yano and Edwards. Simulation of degradation profile with each kinetic model and comparison with the observed profile revealed that the new method offered a better prediction with Edwards model as the best inhibitory model.