Control of fermenters – a review

Abstract

Fermenter control has been an active area of research and has attracted more attention in recent years. This is due to the new developments in other related areas which can be exploited to overcome the inherent dif®-culties in fermenter control. Beginning with conventional regulatory control of operating variables such as temperature, pH and dissolved oxygen concentration, research in fermenter control has undergone signi®cant changes including the recent neural network based approaches. The objective of the paper is to focus the attention of the researchers to the developments in the control of batch, fedbatch and continuous fermenters over the past few years.

Fuzzy servo controller for CSTB with substrate inhibition kinetics

“…This problem can be addressed by feedback control strategies, which are designed to keep the process within the desired operating conditions. Moreover, good control of the fermentation process can reduce production costs and increase yield [2], resulting in substantial economic benefits [3].…”

Multi-objective cascade controller for an anaerobic digester

“…In general, biological systems are known to be highly variable and difficult to measure, and no reliable biological law is available for their measurement [1]. Some of the factors that contribute to the difficulty in controlling anaerobic wastewater treatment (AWT) systems are the following: (i) the nonlinear dynamic behaviour of the models; (ii) the different levels of complexity presented by the existing models and the unpredictable variation of the parameters, that are partly influenced by biomass adaptation; (iii) the unpredictable load disturbances in the inlet stream due to changes in the inlet flow rate and composition; and (iv) the lack of reliable sensors to measure intracellular activities [2,3].…”

How to Optimize Maturation in a Bioreactor for Vascular Tissue Engineering: Focus on a Decision Algorithm for Experimental Planning

“…37 If the problem is considered from the perspective of a control strategy, measurements must be taken online. In this way, information is made available during the maturation process to understand and optimize tissue regeneration by adapting culture conditions throughout the growth of the construct (Fig.…”