CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

In this work the aerobic degradation of phenol by acclimated activated sludge was studied. Results demonstrate that while the phenol removal rate by acclimated activated sludge follows the Monod model, the oxygen uptake rate obeys a Haldane-type equation; for this reason, the phenol oxidation coefficient cannot be considered as a constant. A mathematical model based on a simplified version of the catalytic mechanism of the enzyme phenol 2-monooxygenase was developed to predict transient phenol concentrations and oxygen requirements by phenol-acclimated activated sludge in batch reactors under different initial phenol concentrations. The proposed model not only adequately represents the experimental results of the present paper, but also those reported by other authors. Particular cases of the proposed model are discussed.