The productivity of two serial chemostats

Abstract

This paper considers the production of biomass of two interconnected chemostats in series with biomass mortality and a growth kinetic of the biomass described by an increasing function. A comparison is made with the productivity of a single chemostat with the same mortality rate and with volume equal to the sum of the volumes of the two chemostats. We determine the operating conditions under which the productivity of the serial configuration is greater than the productivity of the single chemostat. Moreover, the differences and similarities in the results corresponding to the case with mortality and the one without mortality, are highlighted. The mortality leads to surprising results where the productivity of a steady state where the bacteria are washed out in the first chemostat is greater than the one where the bacteria are present in both chemostats.