Modelling and Control of Biotechnological Processes

Dear Colleagues,

Industrial biotechnology has traditionally used enhanced and/or genetically modified microorganisms as cell factories to produce specialty metabolites (e.g. amino acids, vitamins, food additives, biofuels,...) of importance for the health, chemical, food, and energy sectors among others. Other biotechnological processes, like wastewater treatment and bioremediation, are also gaining increasing relevance to cope with current environmental challenges. Bioreactors of different sizes and physical configurations are the workhorses in which characterization, scaling-up, and bioprocessing take place. Therefore, modelling, estimation, and feedback control of bioreactions have received much attention in recent years. However, estimation of the relevant variables and feedback control of bioprocesses, specially in industrial environments, is difficult due to some characteristics of the processes that need to be controlled: (i) lack of knowledge on the key variables of the system representing the physiological state of the culture, (ii) high complexity derived from multi-component non-linear process dynamics, (iii) non-homogeneous conditions, and (iv) large variability.

Recent advances in the dynamic analysis of bioreactors and photo-bioreactors, the design of efficient observers and software sensors to estimate relevant variables, and model-based nonlinear feedback control strategies, along with new on-line techniques to measure and act upon the culture, offer the possibility to improve beyond current industrial practices.

Prof. Jesús Picó
Prof. Hernán De Battista
Guest Editors

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