Regulation of a continuous yeast bioreactor near the critical dilution rate using a productostat

Bioreactor performance: a more scientific approach for practice

In practice, the performance of a biochemical conversion process, i.e. the bioreactor performance, is essentially determined by the benefit/cost ratio. The benefit is generally defined in terms of the amount of the desired product produced and its market price. Cost reduction is the major objective in biochemical engineering. There are two essential engineering approaches to minimizing the cost of creating a particular product in an existing plant. One is to find a control path or operational procedure that optimally uses the dynamics of the process and copes with the many constraints restricting production. The other is to remove or lower the constraints by constructive improvements of the equipment and/or the microorganisms. This paper focuses on the first approach, dealing with optimization of the operational procedure and the measures by which one can ensure that the process adheres to the predetermined path. In practice, feedforward control is the predominant control mode applied. However, as it is frequently inadequate for optimal performance, feedback control may also be employed. Relevant aspects of such performance optimization are discussed.

Identification and control of oxidative metabolism in Ssaccharomyces cerevisiae during transient growth using calorimetric measurements

The objective of this study was to characterize the dynamic adaptation of the oxidative capacity of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to an increase in the glucose supply rate and its implications for the control of a continuous culture designed to produce biomass without allowing glucose to be diverted into the reductive metabolism. Continuous cultures subjected to a sudden shift-up in the dilution rate showed that the glucose uptake rate increased immediately to the new feeding rate but that the oxygen consumption could not follow fast enough to ensure a completely oxidative metabolism. Thus, part of the glucose assimilated was degraded by the reductive metabolism, resulting in a temporary decrease of biomass concentration, even if the final dilution rate was below Dcrit. The dynamic increase of the specific oxygen consumption rate, qO2, was characterized by an initial immediate jump followed by a first-order increase to the maximum value. It could be modeled using three parameters denoted qjumpO2, qmaxO2, and a time constant tau. The values for the first two of the parameters varied considerably from one shift to another, even when they were performed under identical conditions. On the basis of this model, a time-dependent feed flow rate function was derived that should permit an increase in the dilution rate from one value to another without provoking the appearance of reductive metabolism. The idea was to increase the glucose supply in parallel with the dynamic increase of the oxidative capacity of the culture, so that all of the assimilated glucose could always be oxidized. Nevertheless, corresponding feed-profile experiments showed that deviations in the reductive metabolism could not be completely suppressed due to variability in the model parameters. Therefore, a proportional feedback controller using heat evolution rate measurements was implemented. Calorimetry provides an excellent and rapid estimate of the metabolic activity. Satisfactory control was achieved and led to constant biomass yields. Ethanol accumulated only up to 0.49 g L-1 as compared to an accumulation of 1.82 g L-1 without on-line control in the shift-up experiment to the same final dilution rate.

Continuous cultivation start-up control--an experimental investigation

A control strategy to avoid development of synchronous growth in carbohydrate limited Saccharomyces cerevisiae cultivations is proposed and experimentally investigated. The basic idea is to control the metabolic flux through the pathways by manipulating the substrate feed rate to keep the ethanol concentration at a low level. An adaptive and a fixed parameter controller were investigated experimentally. Both controllers were initialized at the target conditions for the continuous cultivation, where the uncontrolled process is known to be marginally stable. The latter fact renders it unfeasible to attempt open loop operation at the critical dilution rate. The adaptive controller turned out to be superior to the fixed parameter controller. The superiority of the adaptive controller is ascribed to its ability to identify the process under varying cell activity. The obtained experimental results demonstrate that the desired operating point is reproducibly obtainable. However, after prolonged operation under different types of disturbances the yeast seemed to adapt towards an increased respiratory activity for the same low level of ethanol in the medium.