Methyl tert-butyl ether ~MTBE! biodegradation was investigated using a continuously stirred tank reactor with biomass retention ~porous pot reactor! operated under aerobic conditions. MTBE was fed to the reactor at an influent concentration of 150 mg/L ~1.70 mM!. An identical reactor was operated as a killed control under the same conditions. Operation of these reactors demonstrated that remova...

In present study, effluent from anaerobic digestion of swine wastewater was treated by the simultaneous partial nitrification, anaerobic ammonium oxidation and denitrification (SNAD) process using a lab scale 5L sequencing batch reactor (SBR) under ambient temperature. The fluctuation of anaerobic digester liquor quality (COD, 387 ± 145 mg/L; TKN, 662 ± 190 mg/L; NH₄(+)-N, 519 ± 134 mg/L) and t...

This paper presents the application of nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) to a simulated industrial batch reactor subject to safety and productivity constraints due to swelling. The catalyst used in the chemical process decomposes in the reactor; therefore it is fed in discrete time steps during the batch. Although the optimal reactor temperature profile, using a fixed catalyst dosing po...

BACKGROUND Applications of the power-to-gas principle for the handling of surplus renewable electricity have been proposed. The feasibility of using hydrogenotrophic methanogens as CH4 generating catalysts has been demonstrated. Laboratory and scale-up experiments have corroborated the benefits of the CO2 mitigation via biotechnological conversion of H2 and CO2 to CH4. A major bottleneck in the...

BACKGROUND Simultaneous nitrogen, phosphorous and COD removal in a pilot-scale enhanced Sequencing Batch Reactor (eSBR) was investigated. METHODS The reactor consisted of a pre-anoxic zone and internal recycle and was fed with synthetic wastewater. The study was performed by operating the reactor in 6-hour cycles in three different operational modes during a time frame of 279 days. RESULTS ...

This work studies the control of a fed-batch reactor for the production of penicillin and the design of suboptimal control strategies which result simple for their implementation. These strategies are able to (i) generate a suboptimal control that lead to the batch process towards its desired outputs, (ii) attenuate perturbations and noises always present in the operation of the process and, (i...

The aim of the paper is to present the application of type-2 fuzzy logic controllers (T2FLCs) to the control of a fed-batch fermentation reactor in which the penicillin production is carried out. The performance of the control system using T2FLCs is compared by simulation with that of a control system using type-1 fuzzy logic controllers (T1FLCs). The non linear model used for the simulation st...

In this paper, the problem of controlling the pH, in a fed batch reactor where precipitation occurs, is considered. Due to the batch nature of the production and the effects of precipitation, the control problem is rather different from the well studied cases of continuous processes, which are usually considered under the assumption of perfect solubility. To fulfill this objective on a presente...