MECHANISTIC MODELS ON ENZYMATIC HYDROLYSIS AND ANAEROBIC DIGESTION

For enzymatic hydrolysis, a mechanistic model on enzymatic hydrolysis of pure cellulosic substrates was improved to consider oligomer reactions with beta-glucanases, inhibition of oligomers to cellulases and enzyme decay. Then a novel and general modeling framework was developed for enzymatic hydrolysis of hemicellulose-cellulosic substrates. This mechanistic model, for the first time, took into consideration explicitly the time evolution of morphologies of intertwining cellulose and hemicelluloses. This novel mechanistic model was applied to optimize the composition of enzyme mixtures for substrate conversion and monosaccharides yield during simultaneous enzymatic hydrolysis of different lignocellulosic substrates. For anaerobic digestion, the original Anaerobic Digestion Model No.1 (ADM1) developed by the International Water Association (IWA) task group was modified by improving the bio-chemical framework and integrating a more detailed physico-chemical framework. The modified ADM1 was used to investigate the effects of metal ions and other inorganic components on anaerobic digestion in batch reactor