Computer Applications in Fermentation Technology: Modelling and Control of Biotechnological Processes

Richard Fox Chairman, Scientific Programme Committee Between 25th and 29th September, 1988, 243 people who either apply or research the use of computers in fermentation gathered together at Robinson College, Cambridge, UK. They came from 30 countries. The conference brought together two traditions. Firstly, it continued the series on Computer Applications in Fermentation Technology (ICCAFT) inaugurated by Henri Blanchere in Dijon in 1973 and carried forward in Philadelphia and Manchester. Secondly, it brought the expertise of the many members of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), who focused their attention on biotechnology at Noordwijkerhout in the Netherlands in December, 1985. I am happy to say that the tradition carries on and a successor meeting will hopefully take place in the USA in 1991. If you find these proceedings useful or stimulating, then we hope to see you there. We set out to make ICCAFT4 a close-knit friendly conference. We housed all who cared to in Robinson College itself and organised no parallel sessions. Because we, the organisers, experience difficulty with the jargon of our colleagues from other disciplines, we asked Bruce Beck to present a breakfast tutorial on modern control and modelling techniques, and we set up informal panel discussions after dinner on two evenings. Neville Fish chaired a forum on the microbiological principles behind models, while Professors Derek Linkens and Ron Leigh led a discussion on expert systems in control.

1: Measurement.- Integrated fermentor sampling and analysis.- Measurement of biological reaction rates using advanced pH control systems.- Morphological measurements on filamentous microorganisms by image analysis.- Reconciliation of measurement data in fermentation using on-line expert system.- Glucose biosensors for the study and control of bakers compressed yeast production.- Computer controlled system for on-line monitoring of a fermentation process.- 2: Modelling I.- Structured modelling of bioreactor systems.- Mathematical simulation of anaerobic stratified biofilm processes.- A new approach for development of structured growth models.- Modelling secondary metabolite production — case pleuromulin.- Modelling of kinetics, mass transfer and mixing phenomena in 45, 450 and 4500 L tank fermenters.- A software tool for fermentation modelling.- Hydrodynamic and kinetic modelling of a flocculating bioreactor with cell recycle.- Modelling and simulation of naphthalene to salicylic acid fermentation process.- 3: Modelling II — System Identification, Parmeter and State Estimation.- An introduction to system identification, parameter and state estimation.- Expert system approach to recognize the state of fermentation and to diagnose faults in bioreactors.- Toward a systematic method for the generalization of fermentation data.- Adaptive inferential estimation and its application to biomass control.- Experimental validation of a methodology for on-line state estimation in bioreactors.- Optimal feeding strategy for identification of Monod-type models by fed-batch experiments.- Identification of a simulated continuous yeast fermentation.- Structured modelling and parameter identification of budding yeast populations.- Parameter estimation of kinetics and modelling in methanogenic fermentation of Methanosarcina barkeri.- On-line estimation of cell mass using an extended Kalman filter.- Observability by pH in bioprocesses.- 4: Control I.- Process controlled temperature induction during batch fermentations for recombinant DNA products.- Application of an expert system to the operation and control of industrial antibiotic fermentation process.- IBE fermentation control.- Improvement of the penicillin production in bench-scale reactors by on-line measurement, data evaluation and parameter-adaptive control.- On-line parameter identification and computer control of an anaerobic waste water treatment process.- On experiences with expert systems in the control of bioreactors.- Intelligent purification of monoclonal antibodies.- 5: Control II.- A fed-batch process for pullulanase production.- A new approach for the control of baker’s yeast fed-batch fermentation.- Lyapunov design of convergent adaptive controllers for a class of multilinear systems arising from biotechnological applications.- A new nonlinear adaptive approach to automatic control of bioprocesses.- Adaptive algorithm for estimation and control of fed-batch bioprocesses.- Modelling and control of polygalacturonase production from Kluyveromyces marxianus.- Nonlinear estimation and adaptive control of a fed-batch fermentor.- Sensitivity analysis in static optimization of fermentation plants.- Maximum production of glutathione in fed-batch culture of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.- 6: Data Management.- Management of process control data for bio-process analysis.- Data handling for fermentation development — an industrial approach.- On-line monitoring of the response of a fermentation process to nutrient additions.- A modelling approach to trouble diagnosis by multilevel fuzzy functions and its application.- Model based optimization of a SCP fermentation process.- Adaptive monitoring of bioreactor contamination.- PC-based on-line estimation of derived variables.- The use of carbon dioxide evolution rate in consistency checking other fermenter sensor outputs.- Using the downhill Simplex method to fit complex rate equations to data.- Fermentation fault diagnosis using analytical redundancy.- Author Index.