Investigating Mass Transfer and Reaction Engineering Characteristics in a Membrane Biofilm Using Cupriavidus necator H16

Membrane biofilm reactors are a growing trend in wastewater treatment whereby gas-transfer membranes provide efficient bubbleless aeration. Recently, there has been a growing interest in using these bioreactors for industrial biotechnology using microorganisms that can metabolise gaseous substrates. Since gas fermentation is limited by the low solubilities of gaseous substrates in liquid media, it is critical to characterise mass transfer rates of gaseous substrates to enable the design of membrane biofilm reactors. The objective of this study is to measure and analyse mass transfer rates and reaction engineering characteristics for a single tube membrane biofilm reactor using Cupriavidus necator H16. At elevated Reynolds numbers, the dominant resistance for gas diffusion shifts from the liquid boundary layer to the membrane. The biofilm growth rate was observed to decrease after 260 μm at 96 h. After 144 h, some sloughing of the biofilm occurred. Oxygen uptake rate and substrate utilisation rate for the biofilm developed showed that the biofilm changes from a single-substrate limited regime to a dual-substrate-limited regime after 72 h which alters the localisation of the microbial activity within the biofilm. This study shows that this platform technology has potential applications for industrial biotechnology.