Competition among mixed culture microbial populations is a negative kind of interaction phenomenon that retards the growth of all the species present in the system. Pure and simple competition is a special kind of interaction in which there is only one nutrient whose availability affects the growth rates of the interacting populations. In the biochemical operations employing mixed culture systems, may it be in batch or continuous mode the coexistence of all the competing species depends on their individual growth characteristics and their ability to utilize the available nutrients. In the present study, such a kind of system is subjected to stability analysis using mathematical modeling for the microbial growth following Andrew's growth models. The objective is to predict the operating conditions for coexistence of two competing microbial populations in a chemostat. The growth rate equations and substrate utilization equations of this system has numerous parameters which make them tedious to solve. Hence the modeling work is done using normalization technique and numerical integration. The simulated results obtained using C++ program are presented.
Volume 12 | Issue 4
Pages: 255-266
DOI: 10.5373/JARDCS/V12I4/20201440