MATHEMATICAL MODELING, AUTOMATION AND CONTROL OF THE BIOCONVERSION OF SORBITOL TO SORBOSE IN THE VITAMIN C PRODUCTION PROCESS I. MATHEMATICAL MODELING

In 1990, the Biotechnology and the Control Systems Groups of IPT started developing a system for the control and automation of fermentation processes, applied to the oxidation of sorbitol to sorbose by the bacteria Gluconobacter oxydans, the microbial step of the vitamin C production process, that was chosen as a case study. Initially, a thirteen-parameter model was fitted to represent the batch operation of the system utilizing a nonlinear regression analysis, the flexible polyhedron method. Based on these results, a model for the continuous process (with the same kinetic equations) was constructed and its optimum operating point obtaine