Monitoring Ethanol Fermentation in Real Time by a Robust State Observer for Uncertainties

Autores: Ricardo Aguilar López y Frederic Thalasso

Revista: Chemical Engineering & Technology

Resumen: In this article, the problem of real-time estimation of the fermentative ethanol process is tackled. The considered observer is a model-based technique that is robust regarding the model parameter uncertainties and inline noisy measurements. An unstructured kinetic model was used to describe the production of ethanol in a batch bioreactor for Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The biomass concentration was selected as the measured bioreactor´s output via an inline device, where the estimate variables were the substrate and ethanol concentrations. An experimental prototype was constructed to demonstrate the observer's real-time performance. The experimental results show that the robust, smooth sliding mode observer performs better than the standard proportional sliding mode observer.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ceat.202300324