THE PROCESS UTILITY OF THERMOTOLERANT METHYLOTROPHIC BACTERIA .1. AN EVALUATION IN CHEMOSTAT CULTURE

In Part l, the process utility of a thermotolerant methylotrophic bacterium is evaluated in chemostat culture under conditions where methanol, methanol/formaldehyde mixtures and dual methanol/ammonia limitation occurred. The results show that the bacterium studied was nonfastideous under steady‐state operation, in contrast to results obtained in batch culture. For application in industrial wastewater treatment processes the bacterium should be employed in systems where the biomass residence time exceeds 5 h, i. e., dilution rates < O.2 h−1. Under such conditions, methanol was essentially exhausted and the biomass yield coefficient was lowered. Copyright © 1990 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.