Virtual bioreactor cultivation for operator training and simulation: application to ethanol and protein production

Abstract

BACKGROUND During recent years several computer‐based operator training simulators (OTS) have been developed that are suitable for the virtual training of operators and other professionals. In the field of bioprocess engineering OTS are rarely used. Furthermore, the effects of using training simulators in bioprocess applications have not been evaluated. RESULTS The OTS BioProcessTrainer was applied to bioreactor operations for two biological processes, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, for ethanol production, and recombinant Escherichia coli, for production of green fluorescence protein (GFP). The simulator used a multi‐shell model platform that described the biological and physical conditions of the bioreactor for the two bioprocess systems. The simulator enabled the user to plan, operate and control the processes in real or accelerated time. The training resulted in improved ability to manage the whole bioreactor procedure for the two processes. CONCLUSION The study showed that the simulator can be an efficient tool for training of operation, optimization and control of bioprocesses. The mathematical model framework of the simulator can be adapted to a variety of industrial bioprocesses. Thus, it appears likely that this type of OTS may serve as a useful resource in industry for training and continuing education of plant operators and engineers. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry

Operator Training Simulator for an Industrial Bioethanol Plant

“…Critical is the resemblance of the OTS with the real operator environment and in particular the process flow diagrams of the GUIs used in the control room of the plant [2,24,35,36]. This was generally the case with few exceptions in this study.…”

“…To simulate the course of a hydrolysis process in the OTS, a model is described following the principles of previous work [23][24][25][26].…”

“…In the biotechnological process industry, however, very few OTS have been realised, and they are limited to demonstrations with biogas, bioethanol and biopharmaceutical production in small-scale applications [21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. These previous studies have predominately been performed at a smaller laboratory scale in non-industrial environments or with only a single unit at a larger scale.…”

“…The effectiveness of virtual training has been assessed by e.g., [3, [28][29][30][31] as well as in previous bioprocess-related studies by us [23][24][25][26]. These assessments all conclude that the transfer-of-training factor, i.e., how efficient the OTS is in developing understanding, skills and other capacities of the trainee as a result of the training [3,6], is high and supports the use of OTS in academic as well as industrial training.…”

A metamorphic controller for plant control system design

“…Especially useful is the virtual commissioning technology in the design of manufacturing systems (Fratczak et al, 2013;Kim et al, 2011;Ko et al, 2013a,b;Ko and Park, 2014;Koo et al, 2011;Lee and Park, 2014), but also continuous processes (Barth and Fay, 2013;Bradu et al, 2009;Geist et al, 2013;Gerlach et al, 2013), where a real controller is tested through simulations with a virtual plant. Another possibility is to use supporting applications and tools that are offered by many manufacturers of the control equipment.…”