APPARENT ELIMINATION OF INHIBITION PHENOMENON CAUSED BY PROPER DESIGN OF A BUBBLE TANK BIOREACTOR.

The paper concerns an aerobic microbiological process occurring in a bubble tank bioreactor. If the process is inhibited by a carbonaceous substrate, then the steady states characteristics obtained using models without biofilm indicates a danger of irreversible washout of the biomass. It was shown that taking into account the biofilm immobilized on bioreactor's walls and proper design of the bioreactor can lead to disappearance of the region of the multiple steady-states, i.e. to disappearance of the turning point at the steady state branches. Therefore, the operation of the bioreactor is safe in a wide range of feed flow rates, even those leading to the washout of the biomass from the liquid phase. This property was called apparent elimination of inhibition phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]