Reaction mechanisms and rate constants of waste degradation in landfill bioreactor systems with enzymatic-enhancement

Augmenting leachate before recirculation with peroxidase enzymes is a novel method to increase the available carbon, and therefore the food supply to microorganisms at the declining phase of the anaerobic landfill bioreactor operation. In order to optimize the enzyme-catalyzed leachate recirculation process, it is necessary to identify the reaction mechanisms and determine rate constants. This paper presents a kinetic model developed to ascertain the reaction mechanisms and determine the rate constants for enzyme catalyzed anaerobic waste degradation. The maximum rate of reaction (Vmax) for MnP enzyme-catalyzed reactors was 0.076 gTOC/gDS.day. The catalytic turnover number (kcat) of the MnP enzyme-catalyzed was 506.7 per day while the rate constant (k) of the un-catalyzed reaction was 0.012 per day.