Parameter estimation of kinetics of the enrichment cultures using minimisation of residual error
To estimate the kinetic parameters of the enrichments and to derive the stoichiometry of the process a kinetic model was built. The uptake rate was modelled using Monod equations and no biomass decay or pH inhibition was considered. The saturation constant of the Monod equations for the different microorganisms was assumed to be 0.1 g/L. It is assumed that there is a microbial group degrading glucose and other degrading lactate (only in the complex medium enrichment). In this last case, the measured biomass was divided between glucose degraders (65%) and lactate degraders (35%), based on the derived stoichiometry and the ATP yield on the substrate corresponding to that stoichiometry. Parameter estimation was performed following the method proposed by González-Gilet al. (Gonzalez-Gil et al., 2018) and is further explained in Appendix II.