Effect of enzyme inhibition on the performance of packed‐bed biological reactor ‐ a theoretical study

The performance characteristic of a packed bed reactor has been analyzed by considering diffusional resistance of the biofilm. Model equations were solved by the method of orthogonal collocation for various classical enzyme inhibition kinetics, including partially non‐competitive, partially competitive, partially uncompetitive, partially mixed and fully mixed. For all considered modes of inhibition, an increase in the inlet substrate concentration decreases the steady state conversion in the reactor. However, an increase in the Peclet number has been found to improve the conversion. The effects of various other process variables of physical importance were also investigated parametrically.