Modelling hydrolysis: simultaneous versus sequential biodegradation of the hydrolysable fractions

This paper is a discussion proposal of structural model of organic matter hydrolysis (in aerobic and anaerobic bioprocesses) based on laboratory and model results. Indeed, the hydrolysis mechanism is mechanistically not well understood. Consequently, models are sometimes not appropriate to describe experimental results. Where there are multiple fractions, a model that considers simultaneous degradation of the substrates may not have the resolution to separate the different kinetics. In this paper, we assess sequential extractions to evaluate this as an alternative to simultaneous analysis.