Aerobic biotreatment of acetone and methanol in a continuous flow bioreactor during unsteady state operation

The responses of a culture, enriched with acetone and methanol as dual carbon energy substrates, when growing in a continuous flow bioreactor are examined with respect to various imposed transient state operating conditions. The transients investigated include both removal from and addition to the process feed of acetone and methanol, step changes in the concentrations of acetone and methanol in the process feed, and step changes in the dilution rates employed. The capacity of the culture to achieve complete acetone oxidation, after step changes, was shown to be suspect, emphasizing the need to base performance criteria for biotreatment process operation on individual key component concentrations rather than on the lumped parameters widely used to describe pollutant loads in aqueous effluents.