The feasibility of high-rate composting of barley dregs and sewage sludge was examined using a pilot scale bioreactor. A central composite design (CCD) was used to optimize the mix ratio of barley dregs/sewage sludge and moisture content. The performance of the bioreactor was monitored as a function of carbon decomposition rate (CDR) and total volatile solids (TVS) loss rate. The optimum range ...

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 ...

Background The benefits of single-use technologies in both upstream and downstream operations are now widely acknowledged by the biopharmaceutical industry, and have resulted in radical changes to the design and operation of many pharmaceutical processes. In mammalian cell culture, multi-use, cleanable glass or stainless steel stirred tank reactors (STRs) have been used successfully for growth ...

Mathematical and numerical modelling of the tissue culture process in a perfusion bioreactor is able to provide insight into the fluid flow, nutrients and wastes transport, dynamics of the pH value, and the cell growth rate. Knowing the complicated interdependence of these processes is essential for optimizing the culture process for cell growth. This paper presents a resolved scale numerical s...

Solid-state fermentation requires the development of more efficient cultivation systems for its industrial application. The objective this work was to evaluate effect aeration regime on production biomass and several lignocellulolytic enzymes (laccase, manganese peroxidase, endoxylanase, β-glucosidase, total cellulases) by Trametes versicolor in a novel fixed-bed solid-state pilot-scale bioreac...

Hairy roots of Astragalus membranaceus were grown in bioreactors up to 30 l for 20 d. Cultures from a 30 l airlift bioreactor gave 11.5 g l dry wt with 1.4 mg g−1 astragaloside IV, similar to cultures from 250 ml and 1 l flasks, but greater than yields from a 10 l bioreactor (dry wt 9.4 g l−1, astragaloside IV 0.9 mg g−1). Polysaccharide yields were similar amongst the different bioreactors (ra...

Mixing has been one of the important parameters in characterizing and designing external air-lift bioreactors for the biological processes that require intensive mixing for mass transfer. In this study, pH tracer method was employed to characterize the mixing quality of a three-phase laboratory-scale external-loop air-lift bioreactor (EALR) used for cultivation of a pelletized filamentous funga...

Microbial extraction of nickel from lateritic chromite overburden (COB), Sukinda by Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans has been investigated in this work. In anoxic environment, A. ferrooxidans reduced the ferric iron in goethite [Fe(O)OH] mineral of COB by using elemental sulphur as electron donor. Nickel embedded in the complex goethite matrix of COB was successfully recovered by cumulative actio...

A pilot-scale study of pharmaceutical wastewater treatment by a membrane bioreactor (MBR) process in southern Taiwan is presented in this paper. A 10 m/day capacity MBR plant consisting of an aeration tank and a membrane bioreactor was installed to remove organic matter (measured in terms of chemical oxygen demand (COD)). The performance of the MBR was monitored for a period of 140 days. The re...

the aim of this research was to optimize bioremediation of seawater samples spiked with 1000 mg/l crude oil for removal of n-alkanes (c12h26 to c34h70). bioaugmentation experiments were performed at laboratory scale: each bioreactor contained 250 ml dispersed crude-oil-contaminated seawater, indigenous acclimatized microorganism and nitrogen and phosphorus at concentrations based on central com...