A fundamental analysis of continuous ow bioreactor models governed

by Contois kinetics. IV. Recycle around the whole reactor cascade

Rubayyi T. Alqahtani

, Mark I. Nelson, Annette L. Worthy

School of Mathematics and Applied Statistics, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia
h i g h l i g h t s
" Examined reactor cascade where recycle from the last reactor to the rst reactor.
" Showed that it can improve performance at low residence times.
" At high residence time: a cascade performance with recycle is worse than no recycle.
" For a two-reactor cascade is it better to add a settling unit or a third reactor?
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 17 August 2012
Received in revised form 23 November 2012
Accepted 5 December 2012
Available online 17 December 2012
Keywords:
Bioreactor
Chemostat
Contois growth kinetics
Nonlinear dynamic
Recycle
a b s t r a c t
Prior to discharge into rivers municipal and industrial waste waters may be treated in a reactor cascade
that employs a settling unit to recycle biomass from the nal cascade reactor to the rst. In this paper we
use steady-state analyse to examine the process efciency of such a reactor conguration. The Contois
specic growth rate model is used to describe biomass growth.
It is found that there is a critical value of the total residence time which identies a turning point in the
performance of the reactor cascade. In particular, if the total residence time is below the critical value
then the settling unit improves the performance of an n-reactor cascade (n = 2, . . . , 5), whereas, if the res-
idence time is above the critical value then the performance of an n-reactor cascade (n = 2, . . . , 5) with the
settling unit is inferior to that of a cascade without one. It is shown that the critical values of residence
time depends upon the values of the recycle ratio R and the concentration factor C.
We compare the performance of a reactor conguration employing recycle around the whole cascade
with that of a cascade in which the settling unit recycles the efuent stream leaving the ith reactor into
the feed stream for the ith reactor.
2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
The industrial treatment of wastewaters typically employs a
reactor cascade. In a reactor cascade of n reactors the efuent
stream from the ith reactor in the cascade acts as the feed stream
for the (i + 1)th reactor, i.e. the next reactor. The efciency of the
reactor cascade may be improved by using a settling unit. The set-
tling unit captures and concentrates the microorganisms in the
efuent streamof reactor (i) and recycles it into the inuent stream
of reactor (j, j 6 i). The benet of using the settling unit is that it in-
creases the concentration of microorganisms in reactor j, hopefully
leading to an improvement in the performance of the cascade.
In this paper we investigate the use of a recycling unit to re-
duce the efuent concentration leaving a reactor cascade. We con-
sider a commonly used industrial conguration in which the
settling unit is placed after the nal reactor of the cascade and
recycles a proportion of the efuent stream into the feed stream
of the rst reactor. This process is illustrated for a two reactor cas-
cade in Fig. 1. We call this scenario conguration (1). This cong-
uration differs from that considered in an earlier paper [20], in
which the efuent stream leaving any reactor in the cascade
was recycled into its own feed stream. We call this scenario con-
guration (2). In conguration (2) a settling unit is characterised
by a single number, the dimensionless recycle parameter, which
ranges between zero (no recycle) and one (perfect recycle)
whereas in conguration (1) it is characterised by two parame-
ters: a concentrating factor (C) and a recycle parameter (R). The
governing equations concerning the performance of an n-reactor
cascade cannot be solved analytically. Therefore, we have illus-
trated the results numerically for two reactors. Subsequent stud-
ies using 3, 4 and 5 reactors (not included) did not inuence the
ndings reported here.
1385-8947/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2012.12.022

Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: rtaa648@uowmail.edu.au (R.T. Alqahtani), mnelson@uow.
edu.au (M.I. Nelson), annette_worthy@uow.edu.au (A.L. Worthy).
Chemical Engineering Journal 218 (2013) 99107
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Chemical Engineering Journal
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ cej
Steady-state analysis is used to determine the performance of
conguration (1) and to compare it against that of conguration
(2). We nd that there is a critical value of the total residence time.
If the total residence time is below (above) the critical value then
the settling unit improves (worsens) the performance of the cas-
cade, relative to that of a cascade without a settling unit. This is
noteworthy because in conguration (2) the addition of a settling
unit always improves the performance of a cascade [20]. The crit-
ical values of total residence time depends upon the values of the
recycle ratio (R) and the concentration factor (C). We use our re-
sults to investigate whether it is better to add a settling unit or
an extra reactor to a pre-existing reactor cascade.
In this work the specic growth rate of biomass upon biode-
gradable organic matter is represented by the Contois growth rate
expression, as this has been shown experimentally to be applicable
to the anaerobic and the aerobic degradation of industrial waste-
waters [112]. There has been only a limited number of modelling
studies employing the Contois expression [1420]. The studies that
are most germane to the current investigation are [15,19,20]. Nel-
son et al. [15] investigated the operation of a conguration com-
prising a single reactor with one settling unit. The efuent
concentration was minimised by operting the settling unit with
perfect recycle. Nelson and Holder [19] studied the behaviour of
a reactor cascade of n reactors without recycle, nding that at high
total residence times the efuent concentration is proportional to
1
s

t

n, where s

t
is the total residence time through the cascade.
Alqahtani et al. [20] extended the model of Nelson and Holder by
investigating the performance of a reactor cascade containing
one, or more, settling units with recycle around each reactor (con-
guration 2). They found that the optimized reactor cascade is ob-
tained by using perfect recycle around the nal reactor and
imperfect recycle around the preceding reactors. The investiga-
tions [14,16,17] investigated models employing a variable yield
coefcient.
Using several and differentiated equipments, Mantzaris et al.
[21] explained how the growth process in multiple bioreactors
can be modelled and also addressed the following issues: (1) the
chemical environment is likely to vary in diverse reactors and (2)
the biomass arises as distinct cells which are in reality separate
and remain separated from each other and thus a constituent of
the biomass that go into the reactors will not mix up with the bio-
mass that was previously there. They developed different numeri-
cal algorithms for different models to solve the steady-state and
transient problems and concluded that the heterogeneity in the
biomass can be ignored for the purposes of calculating the concen-
trations of biomass, nutrients, and products in the abiotic environ-
ment if the structured model is linear in the state vector.
The literature relating to the mathematical analysis of cascade
reactors was discussed in [19]. The most pertinent of these to the
subject of this paper is the work Grady and Lim [23,24] who inves-
tigated the use of settling units in the biological treatment of
wastewater. They found that the recycle ratio has no signicant ef-
fect on either the substrate concentration or the microorganism
concentration in each reactor and consequently concluded that re-
cycle is not a signicant tool to reduce the efuent concentration.
The main contributions of the current paper are the following
major features:
1. extend the Contois model [20] to include recycle around whole
cascade;
2. provide a detailed investigation of the steady-state behaviour of
this process model;
3. compare reactor congurations (1 and 2) based on the criteria
that minimize the efuent concentration leaving the nal
reactor;
4. study the effect of the recycle on the performance of the reactor
cascades.
2. Model equations
2.1. The dimensional model
The model equations for a n reactor cascade with recycle
around the whole a cascade are given by
Equations in the rst reactor
V
dS
1
dt
FS
0
S
1
VX
1
lS
1
; X
1

a
FRS
n
S
1
; 1
V
dX
1
dt
FX
1
RFCX
n
X
1
VX
1
lS
1
; X
1
K
d
VX
1
: 2
Equations in the ith reactor.
V
dS
i
dt
F1 RS
i1
S
i
VX
i
lS
i
; X
i

a
; 3
V
dX
i
dt
F1 RX
i1
X
i
VX
i
lS
i
; X
i
K
d
VX
i
: 4
Specic growth rate (Contois model).
lS
i
; X
i
l
m
S
i
K
s
X
i
S
i
_ _
: 5
In the following i (1 < i 6 n) denotes the ith reactor in a cascade con-
taining n reactors. The units that the concentrations of the substrate
species, S, and the microorganisms, X, are measured in are denoted
by jSj and jXj respectively. The parameters in the model are: C, the
recycle concentration factor for the settling unit (); F, the ow rate
through the reactor cascade (dm
3
day
1
); K
d
, the death coefcient
(day
1
); K
s
, the saturation constant (jXkSj
1
); R, the recycle ratio
for the settling unit (); S
i
, the substrate concentration within the
ith reactor of the cascade (jSj); S
0
, the concentration of substrate
owing into the rst reactor of the cascade (jSj); V, the volume of
the reactor in the cascade (dm
3
); X
i
, the cell mass concentration
within the ith reactor of the cascade (jXj); X
0
, the concentration of
the cell mass owing into the rst reactor the cascade (jXj); t, the
time (day); a, the yield factor(jXkSj
1
); l(S, X), the specic growth
rate model (day
1
); l
max
, the maximum specic growth rate
(day
1
); and s
t
= nV/F, the total residence time (day).
Fig. 1. A schematic diagram of the ow around a two reactor cascade (conguration 1).
100 R.T. Alqahtani et al. / Chemical Engineering Journal 218 (2013) 99107
For a specic wastewater, a given biological community and a
particular set of environmental conditions the parameters K
s
, K
d
,
a and l
max
are xed. The parameters that can be varied are C, R,
S
0
, X
0
and s
t
. In our numerical simulations we use parameter values
for the anaerobic digestion of ice-cream wastewater proposed by
Hu et al. [12]. These are: a = 0.2116 (g VSS)(g COD)
1
, l
max
=
0.9297 (day
1
), K
d
= 0.0131 (day
1
) and K
s
= 0.4818 (COD)
(g VSS)
1
.
The operation of the settling unit is characterised by two
parameters: a concentrating factor (C) and a recycle parameter
(R). The maximum value of the concentrating factor that be
achieved in a specic settling unit is related to the value of the re-
cycle parameter.
The value of the maximum concentrating factor C
max
is given by
C
max
1
1
R
_ _
: 6
Alternatively the value of the maximum recycle R
max
is given by
R
max

1
C 1
; C P1: 7
The cases (R = R
max
) and (C = C
max
) represent perfect recycle. The
constraint on the maximum concentration factor and maximum re-
cycle ratio in (6 and 7) is derived by considering a mass balance for
the case when all the microorganism concentration leaving the
efuent stream of reactor cascade is captured by the setting unit.
This means that there are no microorganisms owing out of the
reactor cascade.
The value of the recycle ratio depends upon the type of the reac-
tor. Typically, the designed value can vary between 0.1 and 1 [25]
[pp. 117, 446, 622664]. It is recommend that the recycle pumps
should be capable of delivering ows between one-half and twice
the design value. The concentration factor (C) typically varies be-
tween one to three [25] [pp. 117, 446447, 664].
2.2. The dimensionless model
By using the transformations introduced in [20], Eqs. (1)(4)
can be written into following dimensionless form,
Equations in the rst reactor.
dS

1
dt

n
s

t
1 S

1
_ _

S

1
X

1
a

1
X

1
_ _
nR
s

t
S

n
S

1
_ _
; 8
dX

1
dt

nX

1
s

1
X

1
S

1
X

1
_ _
nR
s

t
CX

n
X

1
_ _
K

d
X

1
: 9
Equations in the ith reactor.
dS

i
dt

n1 R
s

t
S

i1
S

i
_ _

S

i
X

i
a

i
X

i
_ _ ; 10
dX

i
dt

n1 R X

i1
X

i
_ _
s

i
X

i
S

i
X

i
_ _ K

d
X

i
: 11
In Eqs. (8)(11), K

d
is the dimensionless death rate
K

d
K
d
=l
max
_
; a

is the dimensionless yield coefcient [a

= K
s
a]
and s

t
is dimensionless total residence time s

t
nVl
max
=F
_
. All
parameters in the model are strictly non-negative. This model is
investigated with the assumptions that: S

0
> 0
_
; 0 < K

d
< 1
_
.
A feature of our dimensionless scheme is that there is a one to
one relationship between our dimensionless variable and their
dimensional counterparts. Hence, we write often residence time,
rather than dimensionless residence time.
3. Results
The steady-state solution of Eqs. (8)(11) and their stability are
determined numerically. Steady state diagrams showing the varia-
tion of the efuent concentration S

n
_ _
as a function of the total res-
idence s

t
_ _
time are plotted. It should be noted that only the stable
physical meaningful solutions are presented.
In Section 3.1, the stability of the washout solution for an n-
reactor cascade (n = 2, . . . , 5) is determined and in Section 3.2 we
compares the performance of a two-reactor cascade with recycle
around the whole cascade against a two reactor cascade without
recycle. We discuss the effect of changing the concentration factor
(C) for a given recycle ratio for a two-reactor cascade in Section 3.3.
In Section 3.4 we compare the performance of a two-reactor cas-
cade with that of a three-reactor cascade and nally in Section 3.5
we provide asymptotic solutions for the substrate and cell-mass
concentrations for an n-reactor cascade (n = 1, . . . , 5) at large total
residence times.
3.1. The washout branch and its stability
Under washout conditions, the concentration of the efuent is
equal to the concentration of the inuent. This state of operation
must be avoided. The washout, steady state solution is given by:
S

j
1; X

j
0
_ _
; 1 6 j 6 5: 12
The stability of the washout branch for an n-reactor cascade (n =
2, . . . , 5) is achieved by evaluating the Jacobian matrix at the wash-
out steady state. The eigenvalues are determined for an n-reactor
cascade (n = 2, . . . , 5) but it is not presented. It is found that the real
parts of all the eigenvalues are negative, i.e., the washout branch is
stable when the following formula hold,
s

t
<
nf1 R 1 R
n1
RC
1=n
g
1 K

d
s

w
; n 2; . . . ; 5: 13
It is conjectured that this formula (13) holds for all n. This condition
can never be satised for a reactor employing perfect recycle as
s

w
C C
max
0.
In Appendix A we show that the critical value of the residence
time s

w
_ _
is a decreasing function of the recycle ratio. It follows
that its maximum value is,
s

w
R 0
n
1 K

d
: 14
and its minimum value is,
s

w
R R
max
0: 15
3.2. Reactor cascade with recycle around the whole cascade
In this section, we particularly consider a analysis of a two reac-
tor cascade and compare the performance of a two-reactor cascade
with recycle against that without recycle for three different values
(minimum, moderate and maximum) of the concentration factor
(C): C = C
min
= 1, C = 2 and C = C
max
. In the previous section, we
established that the critical value of the residence time (s

w
) for
the two reactor cascade without recycle is greater than the critical
value of the residence time for the two reactor cascade with re-
cycle. That is, only the washout branch is stable below these criti-
cal values, and therefore process failure occurs.
3.2.1. Case C = C
min
= 1
Fig. 2 shows the efuent concentration, leaving two reactor cas-
cade, as a function of the total residence time when the concentra-
tion factor is at its minimum (C = C
min
= 1) whereby it is seen from
R.T. Alqahtani et al. / Chemical Engineering Journal 218 (2013) 99107 101
Eq. (7) the maximum value of the recycle parameter is innity
(R
max
= 1).
It can be seen from Fig. 2 that there are three distinct regions for
each value of R (R > 0). In the rst region, washout occurs in the
two reactor cascade. As the value of R increases from 0 to 1, the va-
lue of the washout point s

w
_ _
decreases from 2= 1 K

d
_ _
to zero. In
this region the performance of the cascade with recycle is identical
to that without recycle. In the second region, the performance of
the two cascade with recycle is superior to the performance of
the two reactor cascade without recycle. Thus in this region the
efuent concentration can be minimised, at a specied total resi-
dence time, by selecting an optimal value of the recycle ratio, de-
noted by R
Opt
. The dependence of the efuent concentration
upon the recycle ratio for a residence time in this region is illus-
trated in Fig. 3a. For a specied value of R the second region ends
when the corresponding efuent concentration curve intersects
the efuent concentration curve without recycle. For example,
using the data in Table 1 we see that the second region correspond-
ing to the curves R = 0.5 and R = 1 in Fig. 2 ends at s

t
2:5 and
s

t
2:4 respectively. The detail of intersection points for the cases
R = 0.5 and R = 1 are given in Table 1. For total residence times be-
yond the intersection points, the effect of recycle ratio (R) on the
reactor performance is negative and vice-versa.
In third region, the performance of a two reactor cascade with
recycle is inferior to the performance without recycle, i.e., recycle
has a negative effect on the efuent concentration. Fig. 3b illus-
trates that in the third region where R
Opt
= 0.
3.2.2. Case C = 2
Fig. 4 shows steady-state diagrams of two reactor cascade when
C = 2. When C > 1, Eq. (7) shows that there is a restriction on the
maximum value of the recycle parameter.
When 0 < R < R
max
= 1, we observe the same three distinct re-
gions that was described in Section 3.2.1. (When R = R
max
, the rst
of these regions does not exist.) It can be seen that in the second
region the performance of the two reactor cascade with recycle in-
creases as the recycle ratio (R) increases and the optimal value of
the recycle is R = R
max
= 1. The intersection points for the cases
R = 0.5 and R = R
max
= 1 are shown in Table 1. In the third region
the optimum value of the recycle ratio is zero, i.e. the use of a set-
tling unit in this region increases the efuent concentration.
Fig. 5a demonstrates the effect of a settling unit upon the efu-
ent concentration S

2
_ _
leaving a two reactor cascade for xed total
residence in the second region. For sufciently small values of R
(0 6 R 6 R
cr
= 0.21) washout occurs as s

< s

w
. For sufciently large
values of the recycle parameter (R > R
cr
= 0.21) the efuent concen-
tration decreases as the recycle ratio increases; the minimumefu-
ent concentration is obtained when R
Opt
= 1.
Fig. 5b demonstrates the effect of a settling unit in the third re-
gion. In this region the efuent concentration is an increasing func-
tion of the recycle ratio, i.e R
Opt
= 0 and the efuent concentration
is minimised by turning the settling unit off.
3.2.3. Case C = C
max
= 1 + 1/R
Fig. 6 shows steady-state diagrams of two reactor cascade for
the special case in which the concentration factor is maximized
(C = C
max
= 1 + 1/R) for two values of the recycle ratio (R = 0.5 and
R = 1). There are two distinct regions. In the rst region the efuent
concentration with recycle is lower than that without recycle. The
0.0001
0.001
0.01
0.1
1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
D
i
m
e
n
s
i
o
n
l
e
s
s

s
u
b
s
t
r
a
t
e

c
o
n
c
e
n
t
r
a
t
i
o
n

(

S
*e
)
Dimensionless total residence time (

)
No recycle
R=0.5
R=1.0
R=R
Opt
Fig. 2. Efuent concentration in a cascade of two reactors with recycle around the
whole cascade. Parameter value: C = C
min
= 1.
0.01
0.1
1
0 2 4 6 8 10
D
i
m
e
n
s
i
o
n
l
e
s
s

s
u
b
s
t
r
a
t
e

c
o
n
c
e
n
t
r
a
t
i
o
n

(

S
*
2
)
Recycle Ratio (R)
0
0.002
0.004
0.006
0.008
0.01
0.012
0.014
0 20 40 60 80 100
D
i
m
e
n
s
i
o
n
l
e
s
s

s
u
b
s
t
r
a
t
e

c
o
n
c
e
n
t
r
a
t
i
o
n

(

S
*
2
)
Recycle Ratio(R)
Fig. 3. Diagram showing the effect of the recycle ratio on the efuent concentration
S

2
_ _
. (a) The lled-in circles is the optimum value of the recycle ratio
S

2
0:0638; ROpt 1:08
_ _
. (b) The optimum value of the recycle ratio is R
Opt
= 0.
Parameter value: C = C
min
= 1.
Table 1
Intersection points in gure i of the recycle curve with the no recycle curve.
i R = 0.5 R = 1 C
Fig. 2 S

2
0.02 0.03 1
Fig. 4 0.003 0.003 2
Fig. 6 0.001 0.003 1 + 1/R
Fig. 10 0.00022 0.00016 2
Fig. 2 s

t
2.5 2.4 1
Fig. 4 4.3 4.5 2
Fig. 6 6.3 4.4 1 + 1/R
Fig. 10 46.60 68.11 2
C = 1 C = 2 C = 3
Fig. 7 S

2
0.028 0.003 0.0014
Fig. 7 s

t
2.5 4.4 6.4
102 R.T. Alqahtani et al. / Chemical Engineering Journal 218 (2013) 99107
efuent concentration leaving the cascade with R = 0.5 is lower
than that leaving the cascade with R = 1.0. The intersection points
for the cases R = 0.5 and R = 1 are shown in Table 1. In the second
region, for sufciently large values of the total residence time, the
efuent concentration leaving the reactor cascade with recycle is
greater than that without recycle. In this region the performance
of the cascade is maximised by removing the settling unit.
3.2.4. Summary
For each of the three cases considered there are two regions of
practical interest. In the rst region, the use of a settling unit im-
proves the performance of the reactor cascade. In the second re-
gion the operation of a settling unit worsens the performance of
the reactor cascade.
Extensive numerical investigations (not shown) an n-reactor
cascade (n = 3, 4 and 5) showed the presence of the two regions
of practical interest that arise for specic case of two reactor cas-
cade. The same conclusions are reached by using Monod model
as explained in Appendix B.
3.3. The effect of changing the concentration factor (C)
Fig. 7 shows the effect of varying the concentration factor on the
efuent concentration leaving two reactor cascade for a xed value
of the recycle ratio (R = 0.5). For a value of R = 0.5, we have from Eq.
(6) that C
max
= 3. At sufciently low values of total residence time,
it is apparent that the performance of the reactor cascade improves
continually as the concentration factor increases. However, for
each value of the concentration factor, there is a critical value for
residence time at which the performances of the two reactor cas-
cade with and without recycle are identical. These values are given
in Table 1. This critical value increases as the concentration factor
increases. If the residence time is greater (lower) than the critical
value, the performance of the two reactor cascade with a settling
unit is worse (superior) than its performance without recycle.
Furthermore, the effect of the concentration factor (C) on the
performance of the two-reactor cascade decreases for larger values
0.0001
0.001
0.01
0.1
1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
D
i
m
e
n
s
i
o
n
l
e
s
s

s
u
b
s
t
r
a
t
e

c
o
n
c
e
n
t
r
a
t
i
o
n

(

S
*e
)
Dimensionless total residence time (

)
R=R
Opt
=1
R=R
Opt
=0
No recycle
R=0.5
R=1.0
R=R
Opt
Fig. 4. Efuent concentration in a cascade of two reactors with recycles around the
whole cascade. Parameter value: C = 2, R
max
= 1.
0.01
0.1
1
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
D
i
m
e
n
s
i
o
n
l
e
s
s

s
u
b
s
t
r
a
t
e

c
o
n
c
e
n
t
r
a
t
i
o
n

(

S
*
2
)
Recycle Ratio(R)
0.0008
0.00085
0.0009
0.00095
0.001
0.00105
0.0011
0.00115
0.0012
0.00125
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
D
i
m
e
n
s
i
o
n
l
e
s
s

s
u
b
s
t
r
a
t
e

c
o
n
c
e
n
t
r
a
t
i
o
n

(

S
*
2
)
Recycle Ratio (R)
Fig. 5. Diagram showing the effect of the recycle on the efuent concentration S

2
_ _
.
The parameter value: C = 2, R
max
= 1. (a) and (b) The optimum value of the recycle
ratio is R
Opt
= 1 and R
Opt
= 0 respectively.
0.0001
0.001
0.01
0.1
1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
D
i
m
e
n
s
i
o
n
l
e
s
s

s
u
b
s
t
r
a
t
e

c
o
n
c
e
n
t
r
a
t
i
o
n

(

S
*
e
)
Dimensionless total residence time (

)
No recycle
R=0.5
R=1.0
Fig. 6. Efuent concentration in a cascade of two reactors with recycles around the
whole cascade. The parameter value: C = C
max
= 1 + 1/R.
0.0001
0.001
0.01
0.1
1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
D
i
m
e
n
s
i
o
n
l
e
s
s

s
u
b
s
t
r
a
t
e

c
o
n
c
e
n
t
r
a
t
i
o
n

(

S
*
e
)
Dimensionless total residence time (

)
No recycle
C=1
C=2
C=3
Fig. 7. Efuent concentration in a cascade of two reactors with recycles around the
whole cascade. The parameter value: R = 0.5.
R.T. Alqahtani et al. / Chemical Engineering Journal 218 (2013) 99107 103
of total residence time s

t
P9
_ _
as shown in Fig. 7. This agrees with
our results in Section 3.5 showed that in the asymptotic limit of
large residence times the efuent concentration leaving the nal
reactor is independent of the concentration factor (C) (a second-or-
der effect). This behavior is observed for an n-reactor cascade
(n = 3, 4 and 5) as well.
3.4. Comparison of a two-reactor cascade and a three-reactor cascade
Fig. 8 compares the performance of two-reactor and three-reac-
tor cascades with and without recycle. For the cascades with re-
cycle, the performance of the three-reactor cascade is superior to
the performance of the two-reactor cascade. However, comparing
the efuent concentration leaving a two-reactor cascade with re-
cycle (Line 2A) against that leaving the three-reactor cascade with-
out recycle (Line 3B) shows that there is a critical value of the total
residence time in which the performances of these two congura-
tions are identical. This value is s

t
3:4; S

e
0:004
_ _
. If the de-
sired efuent concentration is higher (lower) than this value,
then the performance of the two-reactor cascade with recycle is
superior (worse) to the performance of the three-reactor cascade
without recycle.
3.5. Large residence time approximations
In this section we provide approximations at large total resi-
dence times for the concentrations of the substrate and microor-
ganisms. These explain the interesting behavior that was
observed in Sections 3.2, 3.3, 3.4 regarding the effect of recycle
on the reactor cascade. We obtain the following approximations:
S

i
A
i
na

t
1 K

d
_ _
_ _
i
1 R
i1
O
1
s

i1
t
_ _
; i 1; . . . ; 5; 16
X

i
B
i
1 R
1 K

d
_ _
_ _
i1
n
s

t
K

d
_ _
i
O
1
s

i1
t
_ _
i 1; . . . ; 5: 17
where A
i
and B
i
depend on the value of a

and K

d
. Eqs. (16) and (17)
give the concentrations of the substrate and microorganisms in the
rst ve reactors of a n cascade. These expressions hold for any va-
lue of n. For example, substituting n = 7 in these expressions gives
the concentrations in the rst through to the ve reactor of a se-
ven-reactor cascade.
From Eq. (16) the following assertions can be made:
The substrate concentration in each reactor decreases to zero at
large values of the total residence times.
The efuent concentration leaving a n reactor cascade
(n = 1, . . . , 5) is independent of the concentration factor (C). This
is due the fact, under high total residence time, that the micro-
organism concentration in the nal reactor of a n reactor cas-
cade (n = 2, . . . , 5) is proportional to
1
s

n
t
which is much smaller
than the microorganism concentration in the rst reactor that
is proportional to
1
s

t
(see Eq. (17)). Thus, the returned microor-
ganism concentration from the nal reactor to rst reactor mul-
tiplying by the concentration factor (C), see the term CX

n
in Eq.
(9), has negligible effect on the microorganism concentration in
the rst reactor. This is only second orders effect.
The efuent concentration leaving an n reactor cascade S

n
_ _
is
proportional to (1 + R)
n1
for n = 2, . . . , 5. Therefore, the addi-
tion of a settling unit to a cascade without a settling unit
increases the efuent concentration by a multiplicative factor
of (1 + R) at sufciently large total residence times.
At leading order the efuent concentration leaving an n reactor
cascade S

n
_ _
is proportional to (1/s
n
) (n = 1, . . . , 5). The addition
of an extra reactor reduces the efuent concentration by a mul-
tiplicative factor of
1
s

t
for sufciently large total residence times.
(Note that for a single reactor, the efuent concentration at high
residence times is independent of both R and C, as noted by [15]).
In an earlier section we found the surprising result that recycle
around the whole reactor cascade increases the efuent concentra-
tion at sufciently large total residence times. This result is subtan-
tiated by the asymptotic formula (16) which shows that the use of
a settling unit around the whole reactor cascade at large values of
total residence time reduces its performance. Therefore, in this
limit the efuent concentration is minimized by removing the set-
tling unit.
At large values of the total residence time it is interesting to
compare the performances of the reactor cascade with recycle
around the whole cascade with a reactor cascade employing re-
cycle only around the nal reactor, conguration (2). Alqahtani
et al. [20] showed that, for conguration (2), the performance of
the reactor cascade is optimized with perfect recycle at large val-
ues of total residence time. We conclude that, at large values of to-
tal residence time, if a settling unit is used, it should recycle around
the nal reactor rather than around the whole cascade. However,
asymptotic analysis shows that at high total residence times this
is a only second order effect [20].
4. Discussion
The main aim of this section is to compare the performance of
the two-reactor cascade in congurations (1) with the two-reactor
cascade performance in congurations (2). Fig. 9 demonstrates the
efuent concentration leaving either a cascade with perfect recycle
around the ith reactor (i = 1, 2, conguration 2) or a reactor cascade
with recycle around the whole cascade (conguration 1) over a
range of total residence times. It should be noted that the curves
(B and C) are identical to graphical accuracy and the choice of
the parameter values (R = 0.5, C = 3) gives perfect recycle around
the ith reactor (conguration 2). Throughout our comparison we
will ensure that the two congurations possess the same biochem-
ical parameters.
In Fig. 9, there are three distinct regions. In the rst region
0 < s

t
< 6:1
_ _
, the performance of conguration (1) is superior to
the performance of congurations (2). In the second region
6:1 < s

t
< 6:31
_ _
, we can see that for this small range of total res-
idence time, the performance of conguration (1) is inferior (supe-
rior) to the performance of conguration (2) when recycle unit is
place around the second (rst) reactor. In the third region
s

t
> 6:31
_ _
, the performance of conguration (1) is inferior to the
1e-005
0.0001
0.001
0.01
0.1
1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
D
i
m
e
n
s
i
o
n
l
e
s
s

s
u
b
s
t
r
a
t
e

c
o
n
c
e
n
t
r
a
t
i
o
n

(

S
*
e
)
Dimensionless total residence time (

)
Two reactors.2A
Three reactors.3A
Two reactors.2B
Three reactors.3B
Fig. 8. Comparison of performance in two reactor cascade against three reactor
cascade. The parameter value: (A) R = 0.5, C = C
max
and (B) no recycle .
104 R.T. Alqahtani et al. / Chemical Engineering Journal 218 (2013) 99107
performance of congurations (2). The intersection points for the
performances of the congurations (1 and 2) are shown in Table 2.
This clearly explains that desired efuent concentration must be
considered while choosing reactor conguration. Keeping this is
mind, conguration (1) is ideal for the rst region, and congura-
tion (2) for the third region.
Table 3 shows the total residence time required to achieve a
specied efuent concentrations for a two reactor cascade employ-
ing either conguration (1) or (2). For conguration (2) it is as-
sumed that only one settling unit is deployed. Consequently
conguration (2) has two columns in Table 3 representing the
cases when the settling unit is placed the rst or second reactor
respectively.
Table 3 shows that if the desired efuent concentration is either
S

e
0:1 or S

e
0:05 then a two reactor cascade with perfect re-
cycle around the whole of the cascade (conguration 1) outper-
forms either cascade setup utilising conguration (2). When the
target efuent concentration is S

e
0:01, the performance of con-
guration (1) is inferior (superior) to the performance of congura-
tion (2) when an optimized recycle unit is place around the rst
(second) reactor. When the target efuent concentration is
S

e
0:001, the performance of conguration (1) is inferior to both
setups using conguration (2).
We conclude that for target efuent concentrations S

e
0:05, or
higher, the total residence time is minimised using a reactor con-
guration employing optimised recycle around the whole the cas-
cade (conguration 1). However, when the target efuent
concentrations is S

e
0:01, or less, it is better to have optimised re-
cycle either around the rst or second reactor (conguration 2).
5. Conclusion
We have investigated how the use of a settling unit effects the
behavior of an n-reactor cascade (n = 2, . . . , 5). The settling unit is
placed after the nal reactor and the efuent stream from the set-
tling unit is recycled back into the rst reactor (conguration 1).
We used the Contois specic growth rate model with the addition
of a microorganism decay coefcient. The results obtained here
were illustrated by considering the anaerobic digestion of ice-
cream wastewater, using kinetic values from [12].
The stability of the washout branch was determined as a func-
tion of the total residence time. Asymptotic solutions were found
for the no-washout solution branch. The analysis of the asymptotic
solutions has shown that at high total residence times, the efuent
concentration S

n
_ _
is minimised by setting the recycle parameter to
zero.
For a xed value of the recycle ratio R and the concentration fac-
tor C, there is a critical value of the total residence time. If the total
residence time is below the critical value then the settling unit im-
proves the performance of the n reactor cascade (n = 2, . . . , 5)
whereas if the total residence time is above the critical values
the performance of the n reactor cascade (n = 2, . . . , 5) is reduced
compared to that of a cascade without a settling unit.
We compared the performance of the two reactor cascade in the
conguration (1) with the performance of the two reactor cascade
in the conguration (2). We found that for target efuent concen-
trations S

e
0:05, or higher, the total residence time is minimised
using a reactor conguration employing optimised recycle around
the whole of the cascade (conguration 1). However, when the tar-
get efuent concentrations is S

e
0:01, or lower, it is better to have
0.0001
0.001
0.01
0.1
1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
D
i
m
e
n
s
i
o
n
l
e
s
s

s
u
b
s
t
r
a
t
e

c
o
n
c
e
n
t
r
a
t
i
o
n

(

S
*
e
)
Dimensionless total residence time (

)
(B and C)
A
B
C
Fig. 9. Comparison of two reactor cascade performance between conguration (1)
and conguration (2). (A) Recycle around whole cascade, (B) recycle around rst
reactor and (C) recycle around second reactor. The parameter value: R = 0.5,
C = C
max
.
Table 2
Intersection points in Fig. 9 of the conguration (1) with the conguration (2), R = 0.5
and C = 3, A = curve A, B = curve B, C = curve C in Fig. 9.
A = B A = C
S

2
0.001462 0.0015
s

t
6.31 6.1
Table 3
Dimensionless total residence times that is required to reach a specic level of the
dimensionless efuent concentration, a cascade of two reactors, C = 2. Parameter
value: a

0:1019; K

d
0:0141.
Conguration (1) Conguration (2)
R
1
= R
Opt
, R
2
= 0 R
1
= 0, R
2
= R
Opt
S

e
s

t
R
Opt
s

t
R
Opt
s

t
R
Opt
0.1 0.5561 1 0.6796 0.98 1.861 1
0.05 0.9262 1 0.932 0.97 2.178 1
0.01 2.5245 1 2.005 0.97 3.100 1
0.001 7.41202 0 6.395 0.97 7.382 1
Table 4
The total residence times in a cascade of n reactors without recycle that is required to
reach a specic level of the efuent concentration. Parameter value:
a

0:1019; K

d
0:0141.
S

e
n = 1 n = 2 n = 3
0.1 1.944 2.16 3.05
0.01 12.10 3.18 3.23
0.001 112.19 7.41 4.30
1e-005
0.0001
0.001
0.01
0.1
1
10
100
0 20 40 60 80 100
D
i
m
e
n
s
i
o
n
l
e
s
s

s
u
b
s
t
r
a
t
e

c
o
n
c
e
n
t
r
a
t
i
o
n

(

S
*
2
)
Dimensionless total residence time (

)
No recycle
R=0.5
R=1.0
Fig. 10. Efuent concentration in a cascade of two reactors with recycles around
the whole cascade using Monod kinetics. Parameter value: C = 2, R
max
= 1, S
0
= 4000,
l
max
= 1, K
s
= 100, a = 0.5, K
d
= 0.028.
R.T. Alqahtani et al. / Chemical Engineering Journal 218 (2013) 99107 105
optimised recycle around the rst or second reactor (conguration
2).
An interesting question to ask is given an existing cascade of
two reactors whether it is better to add an optimised settling unit
or an additional reactor. The data in Tables 3 and 4 reveals that
when the designed efuent concentration is greater than
S

e
0:01 that it is better to deploy the settling unit. However, if
the specied efuent concentration is smaller than S

e
0:001 then
an additional reactor should be added.
Finally, it is interesting to return to the question as to whether
recycle is a signicant tool to reduce the efuent concentration.
When the desired efuent concentration is S

e
0:1 we see from
Tables 3 and 4 that in the best case the residence time required
for a cascade of two reactors with a settling unit is 25% of the value
without a settling unit. The corresponding values for efuent con-
centrations of S

e
0:01 and S

e
0:001 are 63% and 86% respec-
tively. Thus as the desired efuent concentration reduces, the
impact of a settling unit becomes weaker and weaker.
Acknowledgement
The authors wish to thank three anonymous referees for their
useful suggestions. The rst author would like to thank Dammam
University for through the awarding of a PhD Scholarship.
Appendix A. Investigation of s

w
We have,
s

w

nf1 R 1 R
n1
RC
1=n
g
1 K

d
: 18
Differentiating we obtain,
ds

w
dR

1
R1 R 1 K

d
_ _ nR1 R 1 nR1
R
n1
RC
1=n
: 19
We rst consider the case n = 1. We have,
ds

w
dR

n1

1 C
1 K

d
; 20
If C 1; s

w
is independent of R, whilst if C > 1; s

w
is a decreasing
function of R as claimed.
We now show that for n > 1 that if C 2 (1, C
max
] then
ds

w
dR
< 0: 21
We rst note that
ds

w
dR
C C
max

1
R 1 K

d
_ _ < 0: 22
The function (19) is zero when,
C C
..

nR
1 nR
_ _
n
1
1
R
_ _
: 23
Our result will follow if we can show that C
..
< 1.
Calculation shows that,
d C
..
dR

nR
1 nR
_ _
n
1
1 nRR
2
_ _
n 1 > 0: 24
It follows that,
CR < 1
..
< lim
R!1
C
..
1: 25
Appendix B. Parameter value for Monod kinetics
Monod kinetics have been used extensively to study the growth
rate of biomass in a cascade reactor, such as [25]. Unlike the Con-
tois kinetics, the Monod kinetics only depends upon the concentra-
tion of the substrate. Grady and Lim [25] conducted a
comprehensive investigation of the behavior of a cascade reactor
with recycle for the biological treatment of wastewater in which
the specic growth-rate law followed the Monod model.
Here, we investigate the effect of the recycle ratio on the perfor-
mance of a two-reactor system as a function of the total residence
time replacing Contois kinetics with the Monod kinetics. Using the
transformations introduced in [22], Eqs. (1)(4) can be written into
the following dimensionless form,
Equations in the rst reactor.
dS

1
dt

n
s

t
S

0
S

1
_ _

S

1
X

1
S

1
1
_ _
nR
s

t
S

n
S

1
_ _
; 26
dX

1
dt

nX

1
s

1
X

1
S

1
1
_ _
nR
s

t
CX

n
X

1
_ _
K

d
X

1
: 27
Equations in the ith reactor.
dS

i
dt

n1 R
s

t
S

i1
S

i
_ _

S

i
X

i
S

i
1
_ _ ; 28
dX

i
dt

n1 R X

i1
X

i
_ _
s

i
X

i
S

i
1
_ _ K

d
X

i
: 29
For more details of the parameter denitions, we refer readers to
reference [22].
The two-reactor system is operated at steady state for three dif-
ferent recycle ratios, i.e., R = 0, 0.05, and 1.0. Fig. 10 shows the three
corresponding curves obtained using the parameter values re-
ported by [13].
When 0 < R < R
max
= 1, we observe the same three distinct re-
gions that were described in Section 3.2.1. When R = R
max
= 1,
we note that as the value of the total residence time range between
s

t
0:063 to s

t
100:063 the efuent concentrations increases
insensitively from S

2
0:00016 to S

2
0:00017. Thus, the efuent
concentrations is very insensitive to the variation in the total res-
idence time. This is not the case when the growth rate depends
on both the biomass and the substrate (Contois kinetics, see
Section 3.2.2).
A further interesting point is that, for a single reactor with per-
fect recycle using Monod kinetics, the efuent concentration does
not depend on the residence time [22]. However, for the case in
which the growth rate follows Contois kinetics, the efuent con-
centration does depend on the residence time [15].
The value of total residence time at the intersection points of
second and third regions are higher in comparison to the condition
when Contois kinetics is used. This can be seen in Table 1. In the
third region, the optimum value of the recycle ratio is zero, i.e.,
the use of a settling unit in this region increases the efuent con-
centration as for Contois kinetics.
We conclude that there is a signicant different in model pre-
diction for the case R = R
max
= 1. When 0 < R < R
max
= 1, the general
behavior is the same but the transition occur at higher value of to-
tal residence time using Monod Model.
References
[1] A. Pinna, A. Lallai, G. Mura, M. Grosso, Comparison across different models for
the description of batch biodegradation processes, Chem. Eng. Trans. (2009)
12271232.
[2] N.H. Abdurahman, Y.M. Rosli, N.H. Azhari, S.F. Tam, Biomethanation of palm oil
mill efuent (POME) by membrane anaerobic system (MAS) using POME as a
substrate, PWASET 75 (2011) 419424.
106 R.T. Alqahtani et al. / Chemical Engineering Journal 218 (2013) 99107
[3] N.H. Abdurahman, Y.M. Rosli, N.H. Azhari, Development of a membrane
anaerobic system (MAS) for palm oil mill efuent (POME) treatment,
Desalination 266 (2011) 208212.
[4] P.E. Poh, M.F. Chong, Biomethanation of Palm Oil Mill Efuent (POME) with a
thermophilic mixed culture cultivated using POME as a substrate, Chem. Eng. J
164 (2010) 146154.
[5] S.L. Sun, B. Wu, D.Y. Zhao, X.X. Zhang, Y. Zhang, W.X. Li, S.P. cheng,
Optimization of Xhhh strain bidegradation with metal ions for pharma-
ceautical wastewater treatment, J. Environ. Biol 30 (2010) 877882.
[6] J. Zhang, X. Shao, O.V. Townsend, L.R. Lynd, Simultaneous saccharication and
co-fermentation of paper sludge to ethanol by Saccharomyces cerevisiae
RWB222 Part I: Kinetic modeling and parameters, Biotechnol. Bioeng. 104
(2009) 920931.
[7] J. Czeczot, M. Metzger, J.P. Babary, M. Nihtil, Filtering in adaptive control of
distributed parameter bioreactors in the presence of noisy measurements,
Simulat. Ract. Theory 8 (2000) 3956.
[8] N.A. Gawande, D.R. Reinhart, G.T. Yeh, Modeling microbiological and
chemical processes in municipal solid waste bioreactor, part I: development
of a three-phase numerical model BIOKEMOD-3P, Waste Manage. 30 (2010)
202210.
[9] N.A. Gawande, D.R. Reinhart, G.T. Yeh, Modeling microbiological and chemical
processes in municipal solid waste bioreactor, part II: application of numerical
model BIOKEMOD-3, Waste Manage. 30 (2010) 211218.
[10] T. Hidaka, T. Horie, S. Akao, H. Tsuno, Kinetic model of thermophilic L-lactate
fermentation by Bacillus coagulans combined with real-time PCR
quantication, Water Res. 44 (2010) 25542562.
[11] H. Yasui, R. Goel, Y.Y. Li, T. Noike, Modied ADM1 structure for modelling
municipal primary sludge hydrolysis, Water Res. 42 (2008) 249259.
[12] W.C. Hu, K. Thayanithy, C.F. Forster, A kinetic study of the anaerobic digestion
of ice-cream wastewater, Process. Biochem. 37 (2002) 965971.
[13] S.-H. Yoon, Important operational parameters of membrane bioreactor-sludge
disintegration (MBR-SD) system for zero excess sludge production, Water Res.
37 (2003) 19211931.
[14] A. Ajbar, M. AlAhmad, E. Ali, On the dynamics of biodegradation of wastewater
in aerated continuous bioreactors, Math. Comput. Modell. 54 (910) (2011)
19301942.
[15] M.I. Nelson, E. Balakrishnan, H.S. Sidhu, X.D. Chen, A fundamental analysis of
continuous ow bioreactor models and membrane reactor models to process
industrial wastewaters, Chem. Eng. J. 140 (2008) 521528.
[16] M.I. Nelson, H.S. Sidhu, Reducing the emission of pollutants in food processing
wastewaters, Chem. Eng. Process. 46 (2007) 429436.
[17] M.I. Nelson, X.D. Chen, H.S. Sidhu, Reducing the emission of pollutants in
industrial wastewater through the use of membrane reactors, in: R.J. Hosking,
E. Venturino (Eds.), Aspects of Mathematical Modelling, Birkhuser, Basel, 2008,
p. 95107.
[18] D.E. Contois, Kinetics of bacterial growth: relationship between population
density and specic growth rate of continuous cultures, J. Gen. Microbiol. 21
(1959) 4050.
[19] M.I. Nelson, A. Holder, A fundamental analysis of continuous ow bioreactor
models governed by Contois kinetics. II. Reactor cascades, Chem. Eng. J 149
(2009) 406416.
[20] R.T. Alqahtani, M.I. Nelson, A.L. Worthy, A fundamental analysis of continuous
ow bioreactor models with recycle around each reactor governed by Contois
kinetics. III. Two and three reactor cascades, Chem. Eng. J. 183 (2012) 422432.
[21] N.V. Mantzaris, P. Daoutidis, F. Srienc, A.G. Fredrickson, Growth processes in a
cascade of bioreactors: mathematical models, A. Inst. Chem. Eng. AIChE J. 45
(1) (1999) 164.
[22] M.I. Nelson, T.B. Kerr, X.D. Chen, A fundamental analysis of continuous ow
bioreactor and membrane reactor models with death and maintenance
included, Asia-Pacic J. Chem. Eng. 3 (2008) 7080.
[23] C.P.L. Grady, H.C. Lim Jr., Biological Wastewater Treatment, Marcel Dekker,
Inc., New York and Basel, 1980. pp. 365432 (Chapter 12).
[24] C.P.L. Grady, H.C. Lim Jr., Biological Wastewater Treatment, Marcel Dekker,
Inc., New York and Basel, 1980. pp. 433508 (Chapter 13).
[25] C.P.L. Grady, H.C. Lim Jr., Biological Wastewater Treatment, Marcel Dekker,
Inc., New York and Basel, 1980.
R.T. Alqahtani et al. / Chemical Engineering Journal 218 (2013) 99107 107