Engineering Commons^™

Modelling Of In-Situ Bioremediation With Emphasis On Inhibitory Kinetics And Biomass Growth, Dilip Kumar Mandal

Dissertations

This thesis was motivated by the need for better engineering tools to predict the extent of contaminant plume migration in the saturated zone. The principal result was a mathematical model analogous to a catalytic packed-bed reactor, in which the subsurface was considered to be composed (conceptually) of soil aggregates (the "catalyst" particles, in which biodegradation, diffusion, and sorption take place), and a mobile phase (groundwater) passing around the aggregates, in which convection, axial diffusion, and mass transfer from the aggregates take place.

The modelling emphasis was on a more detailed exposition of the biokinetics of the system (including an inhibitory …

Competition Between Two Microbial Populations In A Sequencing Fed-Batch Reactor And Its Implications For Waste Treatment Applications, Sitaram Dikshitulu

Dissertations

Pure and simple competition between two microbial populations in a sequencing fed-batch reactor (SFBR) was studied both at the theoretical and experimental level. Competition occurred for a single chemical pollutant which could serve as the sole carbon and energy source for both competitors. A mathematical model describing the process under inhibitory kinetics (as is usually the case with hazardous and toxic substances) was derived and theoretically analyzed. The model predicts that the dynamics of a SFBR, and the kinetics of biodegradation, result in a complex set of operating regimes in which neither species, only one species, or both species survive …