Kinetic Model Development for Aerobic Treatment of Wine Vinasses

Abstract

In this paper a general kinetic model for Fermentative processes is proposed. The model is based upon the Quiroga and Sales model for surfactant degradation in the sea environment. The model equation is v = aC2 + bC + d where v is the substrate consumption rate in the fermentative process and C is the substrate concentration in the medium. From this general expression, different simplified equations can be obtained (where d = O; a = O; a = d = 0 or a = b = 0), which are representative of the process for different operating conditions. The proposed model can be related with the logistic equation for microbial growth (Velhurst, Pearl and Reed equation) if Gaden's kinetic approach is used. The model was previously tested for surfactant degradation in sea environment and in this paper the model was applied to several experiments for the aerobic depurative treatment of wine vinasses. Predicted values from the model areclosely related to experimental data for those experiments and the microbiological parameters (related with a, b and d coefficients) are equivalent to their bibliography values.