• Lund University
• Faculty of Engineering
• Automatic Control

Optimizing fermentation control for B. licheniformis

Researchers: Ola Johnsson, Charlotta Johnsson, and Tore Hägglund

This project is performed in collaboration with Novozymes AS and Department of Chemical Engineering within the PICLU centre.

The project focuses on developing, improving and optimizing fermentation control strategies for the B. licheniformis fed batch processes. This process can produce vast amounts of protein but is sensitive to overdosing and process disturbances which lead to process variations and possibly crashed fermentations. There is thus a strong motivation for developing more robust control strategies for this process. The project aim is to develop a general method for finding optimal control strategies for various B. licheniformis production strains.

As part of this project, a general control strategy for control of bacterial growth in fed-batch processes has been developed and tested in pilot scale. Currently, the project is focused on implementing this control strategy in production scale for trials in industry. Several pre-studies have been performed to verify that the strategy can be successfully applied for control of real industrial processes.

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