On control of nonlinear distributed parameter bioreactors

A distributed parameter fixed-bed bioreactor model with axial diffusion is presented. An orthogonal collocation method is applied to obtain a lumped parameter model, i.e. a system of ordinary differential equations, which consists of one subset for the biomass concentration and the other for the substrate concentration. An order reduction parameter of the model is developed, giving a qualitative correlation between the number of collocation points and the accuracy of the steady state solution. The sensitivity of a static state feedback control law is introduced. Some simulation results are presented.