Increasing the bio-hydrogen production in a continuous bioreactor via nonlinear feedback controller

•Dynamic analysis of a class of continuous bioreactor for hydrogen production is performed.•A novel nonlinear control scheme is proposed.•The proposed controller generates asymptotic closed-loop stability.•The closed-loop operation under the proposed controller increases the hydrogen volume production from 2982 mL 5978 mL.

In this work, a novel controller is proposed in order to regulate the dynamic behavior of a class of continuous bioreactor for biogenic hydrogen production, the closed-loop performance of the considered bioreactor increase considerably the hydrogen production successfully. A mathematical model for the anaerobic fermentation of the non-sulfur bacteria Rhodobacter capsulatus is considered as a benchmark system to implementing the proposed methodology. A theoretical sketch of proof of the asymptotic closed-loop stability of the proposed controller is given, considering that the main nonlinearities of the bioreactor's model are bounded. Numerical experiments were carried out in order to show the satisfactory performance of the proposed controller in comparison with an adequately tuned linear PI control law.