Experimental Study of Biodegradation of Ethanol and Toluene Vapors

The data sets used to evaluate the kinetic parameters through a least squares,
nonlinear regression technique. The concentration profiles of the key components were
calculated and the parameters were adjusted to minimize the sum of square of
differences between the experimental results and the simulated results from the derived
model. The ordinary differential equations were solved for the concentration profiles of
the key components by applying the Runge-Kutta, 4 th order numerical procedure using
the spreadsheet: EXCEL. The least squares of the differences between the experimental
results and the simulated results were solved by the SOLVER function in the EXCEL
program to obtain the optimum parameters. The optimum parameters for ethanol and
benzyl alcohol bioremediation obtained as such are given in Tables 5.1 and 5.2,
respectively. The uncertainty was estimated using Monte Carlo method (See Section
5.3.2). Applying the yield coefficients of ethanol and benzyl alcohol of 0.59 and 0.45 to
Equations (5-15a) and (5-30a), one can obtain:
δ = 0 .91±
0.03
(5-38)
K = 2 .61±
0.13
(5-39)
The error analysis for these two parameters (δ and K) is given in Appendix E.
95