This paper is a report of the performance of a new design of anaerobic bioreactor called the induced-blanket reactor or IBR. The IBR appears to treat high-solids organic matter (manure) effectively in a relatively short time without plugging. A 28 m (7500 gal), heated IBR has been in operation at the Caine Dairy, Utah State University’s dairy farm, since summer 2000. The bioreactor, an upflow-s...

Effects of wastewater and mixed liquor characteristics on membrane fouling in both a submerged anaerobic membrane bioreactor and a thermophilic submerged aerobic membrane bioreactor were studied with four types of industrial wastewaters. Significant differences in particle size distribution, colloidal content, the protein to polysaccharide ratio, and soluble compounds molecular weight distribut...

Biological hydrogen production by anaerobic mixed communities was studied in laboratory-scale bioreactors using sucrose as the substrate. A bioreactor in which a fraction of the return sludge was exposed to repeated heat treatments performed better than a control bioreactor without repeated heat treatment of return sludge and produced a yield of 2.15 moles of hydrogen per mole of sucrose, with ...

Membrane bioreactor systems can enhance anaerobic lactic acid fermentation by reducing product inhibition, thus increasing productivity. In batch fermentations, the bioconversion of glucose is strongly inhibited in the presence of more than 100 g·L-1 lactic acid and is only possible when the product is simultaneously removed, which can be achieved by ceramic membrane filtration. The crossflow v...

The objectives of the study were to measure the levels of manure nutrients retained in psychrophilic anaerobic sequencing batch reactors (PASBRs) digesting swine manure, and to determine the distribution of nutrients in the sludge and supernatant zones of settled bioreactor effluent. Anaerobic digestion reduced the total solids (TS) concentration and the soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD) of...

Filamentous cells belonging to the candidate bacterial phylum KSB3 were previously identified as the causative agent of fatal filament overgrowth (bulking) in a high-rate industrial anaerobic wastewater treatment bioreactor. Here, we obtained near complete genomes from two KSB3 populations in the bioreactor, including the dominant bulking filament, using differential coverage binning of metagen...

A system for calorimetric measurements is established in a 1500 L pilot bioreactor. Saccharomyces cerevisiae, baker’s yeast has three metabolic pathways: 1) purely oxidative, glucose consuming; 2) purely reductive, glucose consuming and ethanol producing and 3) purely oxidative, ethanol consuming. Designing experiments to lead the yeast to a single pathway, the accuracy of the calorimetric meas...

Molecular biology techniques provide valuable insights in the investigation of microbial dynamics and evolution. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) analysis is one of the most popular methods which have been used in bioprocess assessment. Most of the anaerobic digestion models consider several microbial populations as state variables. However, the difficulty of measuring individual ...

Growing interest has been shown in the continuous production of high-value products such as extracellular secondary metabolites used in the biotechnology, bioremediation and pharmaceutical industries. These high-value extracellular secondary metabolites are mostly produced in submerged fermentations. However, the use of continuous membrane bioreactors was determined to be highly productive. A n...