Kinetics of Methane-Oxidizing Biofilms for Degradation of Toxic Organics

The kinetics of methane-oxidizing bioreactors for the degradation of toxic organics are modeled. Calculations of the fluxes of methane and toxic chlorinated hydrocarbons were made using a biofilm model. The model simulated the effects of competition by toxics and mediane on their enzymatic oxidation by the methane monooxygenase. Dual-competitive-substrate/diffusion kinetics were used to model biofilm co-metabolism, integrating equations of the following form:where S1 and S2 are the local concentrations of methane and toxic compound, respectively, and r and K are the maximum uptake rates and Monod coefficients, and x is the distance into the biofilm.