Biodegradation kinetics of benzene, toluene and xylene compounds: microbial growth and evaluation of models

The biodegradation kinetics of BTX compounds (benzene, toluene, and xylene) individually and as mixtures was studied using models with different levels of sophistication. To compare the performance of the unstructured models applied in this work we used experimental data obtained here and some results published in the literature. The system description was based on the material balances of key components for batch operations, where the Monod and Andrews models were applied to predict the biodegradation of individual substrates. To simulate the biodegradation kinetics of substrate mixtures, models of substrate inhibition were applied along with the Sum Kinetics with Interaction Parameters (SKIP) models, where for two-component association toluene–xylene SKIP model presented better performance and for tri-component association benzene–toluene–xylene, the uncompetitive inhibition model was better. The kinetic parameters were estimated via a global search method known as Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). The main result of this study is that the sophisticated biodegradation kinetics of BTX mixtures can be successfully described by applying the SKIP model, with the main advantage being the consideration of the substrate interactions.