ILC-based initial disturbance compensation feedforward controller for tricalcium neutralization process

Abstract

Tricalcium neutralization process (TNP) is one of the key recover process in citric acid production process. In this process, the amount of calcium carbonate added needs to be controlled to ensure the pH of the reactants within the target range at the end-point of every batch. But the random initial pH of the fermentation broth impacts a lot on the stability of the end point pH. In this work, an ILC-based control strategy is proposed to optimize the addition of calcium carbonate. First, the ILC is performed and the optimal input of the process can be obtained after several batches. Second, an initial disturbance compensation controller optimized by ILC is proposed. An experimental platform for TNP is designed, and the results demonstrate the proposed control strategy can achieve the end point pH control and suppress the disturbance by the indeterminate initial pH value.