Wall Growth

Abstract

Often, the microorganisms grownot only in the growth medium (container), but also along the walls of the container. This is either due to the ability of the microorganisms to stick on to the walls of the container or the flow rate is not fast enough to wash these organisms out of the system. This phenomenon is generally referred to as the “wall growth.” One of the basic assumptions in a simple chemostat is that the washout rate is fast enough that it does not allow any wall growth. But when one uses a chemostat to describe a bio reactor, wall growth becomes an important factor to be considered (e.g., growth of microflora in large intestine of mammals, etc). Again when we consider a lake situation, where the flow rate is very low, we can observe the growth of algae and fungi along the walls or banks. These observations motivate us to study the influence of wall growth on the dynamics of limited nutrient-consumer system and we appropriately modify our model equations (2.81) in order to incorporate thewall growth into our model.