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A chemostat model with variable dilution rate due to biofilm growth

In many real life applications, a continuous culture bioreactor may cease to function properly due to bioclogging which is typically caused by the microbial overgrowth. This is a problem that has been largely overlooked in the chemostat modeling literature, despite the fact that a number of models explicitly accounted for biofilm development inside the bioreactor. In a typical chemostat model, the physical volume of the biofilm is considered negligible when compared to the volume of the fluid. In this paper, we investigate the theoretical consequences of removing such assumption. Specifically, we formulate a novel mathematical model of a chemostat where the increase of the biofilm volume occurs at the expense of the fluid volume of the bioreactor, and as a result the corresponding dilution rate increases reciprocally. We show that our model is well-posed and describes the bioreactor that can operate in three distinct types of dynamic regimes: the washout equilibrium, the coexistence equilibrium, or a transient towards the clogged state which is reached in finite time. We analyze the multiplicity and the stability of the corresponding equilibria. In particular, we delineate the parameter combinations for which the chemostat never clogs up and those for which it clogs up in finite time. We also derive criteria for microbial persistence and extinction. Finally, we present a numerical evidence that a multistable coexistence in the chemostat with variable dilution rate is feasible.

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