A Laboratory Experiment for Teaching Bioprocess Control Part 1: Hardware Setting

In this paper, the development of a laboratory experiment for teaching bioprocess control and automation is presented. In bioprocesses, chemical reactions are performed by living microorganisms, which do not only show increased metabolic needs and certain environmental susceptibilities, but also offer huge advantages like highly sophisticated capabilities for synthesizing complex protein products in a reliable, fast, cheap, and safe manner. Therefore also the plants to be used for bioreactions exhibit, compared to conventional process technology, additional demands e.g. with respect to sterility or aeration. The corresponding lecture intentionally focuses on modern geometric [and] model-based control. As the dynamics of a bioprocess depend on the characteristics of the microorganisms' metabolism as well as on some mechanical properties of the bioreactor used, a bioprocess model constitutes of two parts: a kinetic model of the microorganisms, and a reactor model. This paper, as a first in a series of three, focuses on the latter, including the experimental procedures for identification of the four most important characteristics of a bioreactor, which are power input, homogenization, and gas and heat transfer. Considerations on scale-up of the reactor system increase comprehension of the model. A short description of the control system used, a portable low-cost host-target real-time computer system completes this experiments' hardware documentation. One distinctive feature of the control system is its newly developed graphical user interface. This interface was programmed in Labview and relieves operation of the plant as it does not fall short of commercial ones in any way thus well-prepares students for a latter job. Concomitant papers will in detail describe the kinetic model and the didactic design of the instructions for the experiment.