Department of Chemical Engineering, Chemistry and Environmental Science
Degree:
Doctor of Engineering Science
Program:
Chemical Engineering
Document Type:
Dissertation
Advisory Committee:
Lewandowski, Gordon (Committee co-chair) Armenante, Piero M. (Committee co-chair)
Sofer, Samir S. (Committee member)
Baltzis, Basil (Committee member)
Liskowitz, John W. (Committee member)
Various nutrient media and reactor configurations have been explored in order to grow the white rot fungus Phanerochaete chrysosporium, induce its active enzyme, develop kinetic data for the degradation of 2-chlorophenol, and use chemical engineering analysis to design an efficient reactor.
Preliminary experiments indicated that the biodegradation rate was improved by two to three orders of magnitude when the fungus was immobilized. As a result, emphasis shifted to two types of reactor design: a packed-bed reactor employing a silica-based porous support, and a fluidized-bed reactor employing alginate beads. Both were very effective in degrading 2 chlorophenol at inlet concentrations up to 520 ppm. Apparent Michaelis-Menten kinetic rate constants were developed for both reactors. To our knowledge, these are the first such constants to be published for this fungus.
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