Investigation of Growth in Mixed Substrate Bacterial Cultures

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This effort will attempt to develop mathematical models to describe the kinetics in bioreactors in which the nutrient media comprises mixed substrates. Previous studies have shown that certain substrate-mixtures lead to a sequential utilization of substrates in some order of preference, while others provide for joint (or simultaneous) utilization. In sequential utilization, the preferred substrate is the one which supports the highest growth rate. When this nutrient is exhausted, there follows a period of new growth during which a new set of enzymes needed for the utilization of the second nutrient is produced. This is followed by growth on the second nutrient. In simultaneous utilization the growth rate is some intermediate value between the slowest and fastest possible for the individual nutrient. The mathematical models will establish an optimality condition to describe these phenomena and these models will be tested using mixed substrates in batch and continuous systems.