SBR Reactors for Xenobiotic Removal: Dynamic Simulation and Operability Criteria

Sequencing Batch Reactors (SBR) appear to be an effective technological solution in order to obtain a versatile microorganism culture able to develop metabolic pathways required for degradation of bioresistant substances. Nevertheless, the performance of these devices is limited by the inhibitory kinetics of xenobiotic biodegradation that results in a significant reduction of the removal rate if the biomass experiences high substrate concentrations. In this work a dynamic model is formulated to describe the behavior of an SBR reactor for xenobiotic removal and to investigate the influence of the kinetic parameters and the operating on the biodegradation efficiency. In particular, the model shows that for inhibitory kinetics an abrupt change from low to high substrate concentrations in the outlet stream (i.e from a high to a low process efficiency) can occur, depending on the kinetic and operating parameter values.