Extensions of the chemostat model with flocculation
Extension du modèle du chemostat avec floculation
Résumé
We discuss a model of the chemostat where the species are present in two forms, isolated bacteria and under an aggregated form like attached bacteria or bacteria in flocks. Assuming that flocculation and deflocculation dynamics are fast with respect to the growth of the species, we construct a reduced chemostat-like model in which both the growth functions and the apparent dilution rate depend on the density of the species. We show that such a model involving monotonic growth rates may exhibit bistability, while it may only occur in the classical chemostat model when the growth rate is non monotonic.