A simple microbial electrochemical cell model and dynamic analysis towards control design

Abstract

In this article, a mathematical microbial electrochemical cell (MEC) dynamic model is proposed. The model is derived from mass balances of a continuous flow MEC system which consists of two interconnected chambers. The system is described by a set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations (ODEs) that describes: (i) the competition of anodophilic and methanogenic microbial populations for a common substrate and; (ii) biomass growth and retention in the anodic compartment. Open loop behavior is evaluated via numerical simulations. The model is suitable both for process optimization and online control applications. Parametric sensitivity, stability, and convergence properties of the proposed model are also addressed in this article.