The process utility of thermotolerant methylotrophic bacteria: I. An evaluation in chemostat culture.

In Part l, the process utility of a thermotolerant methylotrophic bacterium is evaluated in chemostat culture under conditions where methanol, methanol/formaldehyde mixtures and dual methanol/ammonia limitation occurred. The results show that the bacterium studied was nonfastideous under steady-state operation, in contrast to results obtained in batch culture. For application in industrial wastewater treatment processes the bacterium should be employed in systems where the biomass residence time exceeds 5 h, i. e., dilution rates < O.2 h(-1). Under such conditions, methanol was essentially exhausted and the biomass yield coefficient was lowered.