Cj. Vanede et al., ANALYTICAL EFFECTIVENESS FACTOR CALCULATIONS CONCERNING PRODUCT-INHIBITED FERMENTATIONS ASSOCIATED WITH BIOFILM GROWTH AND MAINTENANCE, Canadian journal of chemical engineering, 71(6), 1993, pp. 901-910
An analytical reaction engineering model, recently presented by van Ed
e et al. (1992), which describes formation of inhibiting products asso
ciated with the growth of immobilized biofilms, is extended to describ
e simultaneous production associated with biofilm maintenance. The mod
el accounts for both the metabolic rate controlling behaviour of an in
hibitory product in the biofilm, and the effect of diffusion limitatio
n in the transport of this product or a substrate, on the biofilm thic
kness. Simple criteria are presented to check the applicability of the
model in the case of true Monod kinetics. As a potentially industrial
ly important example, ethanol production by Zymomonas mobilis is treat
ed.