A Growth Yield Model for Substrate-Sufficient Continuous Culture of Microorganisms

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Abstract
It is generally observed that the growth yields are greater under substrate-limited conditions than under substrate-sufficient conditions in chemostat cultures. However, the Pirt maintenance theory could not correctly explain the effect of excessive substrate on the growth yield. The excess substrate should cause serious uncoupling between anabolism and catabolism leading to energy spilling. Based on a balance on substrate reaction, the total quantity of substrate consumed by microorganisms is taken to be the sums of the quantity of substrate utilization for growth, the quantity of substrate utilization for maintenance and that due to energy spilling. A kinetic model is proposed to describe the dependence of the observed growth yield on residual substrate concentration for substrate-sufficient culture. It is demonstrated that the observed growth yield decreases with increasing the residual substrate concentration. This model describes the literature data satisfactorily.

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