Anaerobic digestion of carbohydrate and protein-based wastewaters in fluidized bed bioreactors

the present work is focused on evaluating the anaerobic digestion of complex substrates (proteins and carbohydrates) in anaerobic fluidized bed reactors (afbrs). in a previous paper, an afbr model was adjusted using only the experimental data obtained during the acclimatization stage (glucose and acetate-based feeding) of two mesophilic bioreactors. here, the sensitivity of that model to represent the digestion processes of proteins such as gelatin and albumin, and sucrose as a carbohydrate, is analyzed. some kinetic expressions and parameters for the enzymatic hydrolysis processes need to be modified to represent the real behavior of bioreactors. under the analyzed operating conditions, a hydraulic retention time higher than 1 day is suggested to ensure good system efficiency.