An on-line adaptive glucose feeding system incorporating patterns recognition for glucose concentration control in glutamate fermentations

Abstract

In glutamate fermentation, intermittent feeding is the most widely used glucose feed strategy. This feeding strategy causes severe fluctuations of glucose concentration and osmotic pressure in fermentation broth, which deteriorates the viability of the cell and reduces glutamate production in turn. In order to maintain glucose concentration at stable and constant levels, an on-line prediction and feedback control system based an empiric mass balance model was developed. However, the control system did not work properly and sometimes glucose concentration could even decline to 0 level (glucose exhaustion), as the model parameter varies in different runs. As a result, a novel model-based adaptive feedback control system incoporating with an artificial neural network (ANN) based pattern reconition unit for on-line diagnosizing the fault of glucose exhaustion was proposed and applied for glutamate fermentation. This adaptive control system could accurately detect glucose exhaustion when it occurs, and then immediately updates the control parameter based on some pre-defined rule. With the proposed control system, glucose was automatically fed, and its concentration could be maintained at desired levels constantly. As a result, glutamate concentration was 17 ~ 30% higher than that of the traditional fermentations using the intermittent glucose feed strategy.