Fast online determination of surfactant inhibition in acidic phase bioreactors

Surfactants have been shown to inhibit the anaerobic digestion process severely, with the methanogenic microorganisms being the most affected. The diverse nature of surfactants used even in one (e.g. textile finishing) plant makes an online determination of surfactants sometimes very difficult and expensive. Therefore a fast online determination of inhibitory effects on the acidogenic microorganisms (first step of the degradation cascade) can help to give an early warning signal or to calculate a "pseudo"-surfactant concentration. In a two-phase system this information can be used to protect the methanogenic reactor against surfactant overloading and its long term negative effects. In this paper it is shown that the inhibition is a consequence of microbial inhibition and is not caused by an inactivation of extracellular hydrolytic enzymes (released by the cells for biopolymer cleavage). A titration technique was successfully employed to measure the surfactant inhibition in a laboratory-scale acidification reactor. Additional experiments demonstrate (using sodium dodecyl sulfate as the model substance) how inhibitory effects (and strategies to overcome inhibitory effects) can be investigated efficiently.