Continuous Cheese Whey Fermentation in a Series of Two Reactors

A steady state model for cheese whey fermentation in two series of reactors has been developed. Themodel was derived based on mathematical and fundamental chemical engineering concept. The aim ofthis research is to develop the model for cheese whey fermentation in two series of reactors and toinvestigate the effect of hydraulic retention time on process performance. This research showed thatthe recommended values of hydraulic retention time for the second reactor decreased as the inletsubstrate concentration increased. The results were 14, 7, and 2 h for 50, 100, and 150 g/l inletsubstrate concentration. Another important result was the significant reduction of substrate andslightly higher values of ethanol concentration obtained by combining two reactors in series comparedto the use of single reactor.