RESULTS

Parameter Value

Amounts of yeast used (g) 30

Amounts of sugar used (g) 40

Amounts of sugar solution used (L) 7

Temperature (C) 35

Total suspension time in the reactor (min) 90

For flowrate of air 5 LPM

Parameter Value

pH 3.69

Suspended solid (g) 0.83 (ni value yg sy hentam tu)

Carbon dioxide (M) 0.02015

Volume of NaOH being used = 40.3 mL

Volume of sample = 100 mL

Rate of reaction = 2.238 x 10-4 M/min

For flowrate of air 6.8 LPM

Parameter Value

pH 3.81

Suspended solid (g) 0.97

Carbon dioxide (M) 0.0136

Volume of NaOH being used = 27.2mL

Volume of sample = 100 mL

Rate of reaction = 1.511 x 10-4 M/min

For flowrate of air 8.5 LPM

Parameter Value

pH 3.80

Suspended solid (g) 0.246

Carbon dioxide (M) 0.01355

Volume of NaOH being used = 27.1 mL

Volume of sample = 100 mL

Rate of reaction = 1.505 x 10-4 M/min

Graph of pH vs flowrate of air

3.82
3.8
3.78
3.76
3.74
pH

3.72
3.7
3.68
3.66
3.64
3.62
5 6.8 8.5
flowrate of air (LPM)

Figure 1: Graph of pH against flowrate of air

 Graph of Amount of suspended solid produced vs
flowrate of air
1.2
Amount of suspended solid produced (g)
1

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
1 2 3
flowrate of air (LPM)

Figure 2 Graph of suspended solid produced against flowrate of air

Graph of Amount of cabon dioxide produced vs

flowrate of air
0.025
Amount of cabon dioxide produced (M)

0.02

0.015

0.01

0.005

0
5 6.8 8.5
flowrate of air (LPM)

Figure 3: Graph of carbon dioxide produced against flowrate of air

 Graph of rate of reaction vs flowrate of air
0.0004
0.00035
Rate of reaction (M/min)
0.0003
0.00025
0.0002
0.00015
0.0001
0.00005
0
1 2 3
flowrate of air (LPM)

Figure 4: Graph of rate of reaction against flowrate of air

DISCUSSION

This experiment was conducted to study the effect of air flowrate on the efficiency of aerobic
digester. In conducting this experiment, Aerobic Digester Model TR 28 were used to allow digestion
of sugar using microorganisms called Saccharomyces Cerevisiase. Three different flowrate of air,
namely 5 LPM, 6.8 LPM and 8.5 LPM were used as manipulated variable, while temperature of the
system was kept constant at 35oC. In order to study how efficiency of aerobic digestor change with air
flowrate, three different parameters were measured namely, pH, amount of suspended solid remains
and amount of carbon dioxide produced by the microorganism in the process and rate of reaction of the
process.

First parameter rate of reaction of the process. Basically, reaction involves degradation of
glucose in the presents of oxygen to produce carbon dioxide, water and energy. The reactions takes
place due to the presents of microorganism as a digester. The reaction can simply be written as follows:

C6H12O6 + 6O2 --> 6CO2 + 6H2O + ATP (Equation 1)

Thus, in this experiment, the Solteq equipment were set to perform at different flowrate of air.
The carbon dioxide consumed were then measured by using titration method. Then, the calculated value
of carbon dioxide consumed were then used to calculate rate of reaction by simply dividing molarity of
carbon dioxide with total time suspension in reactor. The results of reaction rate against flowrate of air
were presented in the form of graph as shown in Figure 4. Based on figure 4, it can be found that as
flowrate decrease, reaction rate were decreases. This actually deviates from actual theory. Rule of thumb
said that, supposedly increasing the flowrate of air will increase the value of rate of reaction. This is
because, according to ideal gas law equation, the higher the flowrate of air will gives higher pressure.
The high pressure tends to increase the gaseous per unit volume of air. Finally, this will results in the
increase the reaction rate of the system according Fogler (2014). However, the as seen in the graph, the
results shows opposite trend in which the reaction rate decrease from 5 to 8.5 LPM, then it is
mysterically kept constant afterward up to 8.5 LPM. This might happen due to some source of error in
which will further discuss later in this report.

Second parameter to study is the amount of carbon dioxide produced. This is solely related to
the rate of reaction, because once reaction rate increases, the amount of carbon dioxide product will
also increase according to Equation 1. Moreover, theoretically said, as the amount of reactant of oxygen
(derived from air) increase, the carbon dioxide product will also increases. However, as previous results
were deviate from theory, the results for amount of carbon dioxide produced against air flowrate will
also affected. As can be seen the trend of graph of amount of carbon dioxide produced against air flow
rate follows the trend of previously discussed parameter as shown in Figure 3 and Figure 4, respectively.
This deviation will also be further discussed later.

Next parameter to be studied was pH value. pH is actually solely related to the digestion
process because microorganism will consumed oxygen in order to digest nutrient. This will later
produce product of carbon dioxide and clean water. Theoretically said, the higher the carbon dioxide
present will gives the higher pH of the solution as a results of increasing air flowrate. Thus, to clearly
study the relationship between these parameter, a graph of pH against flowrate of air were presented as
shown in Figure 1. By referring to Figure 1, it can be clearly noticed that increasing the flowrate will
essentially increase the flowrate. However, there is sudden decrease in pH from 6.8 LPM to 8.5 LPM
of flowrate of air. This also deviates from theory and will also further discuss the source of error that
cause this disagreement.

Finally, last parameter to be consider is the amount of suspended solid produce. Suspended
solid is actually the amount of small particles that remain suspension in the water as a colloid. This
parameter will indicate the quality of water after aerobic digestion takes place. Essentially, the higher
the suspended solid, the darker the colour of the water sampling. Theoretically said, as the amount of
air flowrate increase, the microorganism will become much active to digest. This will reduce the amount
of suspended solid and finally produce much cleaner water. In this experiment, as shown in Figure 2,
increasing the flowrate from 5 LPM to 6.8 LPM will increase the amount of suspended solid. This also
deveiates from theory. Luckily, the trends follows theory after the flowrate of air is increased from 6.8
LPM to 8.5 LPM.

Last but not least, as so many deviation were noticed while conducting this experiment, some
sources of error will be presented in order to explain these errors. Major error might occur during
titration. This basically happened due to the systematic errors such as parallax error, inaccuracy of
scales and imprecision of scales. Besides, the error might also happen due to the over titrated of the
sample. Over titrated the sample will actually change the sample to dark purple instead of pale purple.
This means the NaOH used to titrate the sample is in excess from the actual value. Thus, this will
apparently affected the results obtained. Furthermore, the error might also happen due to the fluctuation
of temperature of the water. When conducting the experiment, it can be noticed that there is an overshoot
of temperature from setpoint. This might happen due to the equipment failure. As a results, the optimum
condition for the microorganism growth which is 35C is difficult to maintain. This finally will caused
some of the microorganism to dead. That is why obviously, the reaction rate is decreasing as air flowrate
increase. Finally, the error might als produced due to the equipment that is not well maintained and
calibrated periodically.

REFERENCE

Fogler, H. S. (2014). Elements of Chemical Reaction Engineering. UK: Pearson