Bioreactor Scalability: Laboratory-Scale Bioreactor Design Influences Performance, Ecology, and Community Physiology in Expanded Granular Sludge Bed Bioreactors.

ABSTRACT: Studies investigating the feasibility of new, or improved, biotechnologies, such as wastewater treatment digesters, inevitably start with laboratory-scale trials. However, it is rarely determined whether laboratory-scale results reflect full-scale performance or microbial ecology. The Expanded Granular Sludge Bed (EGSB) bioreactor, which is a high-rate anaerobic digester configuration, was used as a model to address that knowledge gap in this study. Two laboratory-scale idealizations of the EGSB-a one-dimensional and a three- dimensional scale-down of a full-scale design-were built and operated in triplicate under near-identical conditions to a full-scale EGSB. The laboratory-scale bioreactors were seeded using biomass obtained from the full-scale bioreactor, and, spent water from the dist

SUBMITTER: Connelly S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5410579 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature