Fuzzy control of dissolved oxygen, pH and temperature of bubble column bioreactor for Candida utilis biomass production

An automatic control system by dissolved oxygen (DO) fuzzy logic, pH and temperature in a bubble column bioreactor (BCB) for Candida utilis CECT 10704 biomass production was implemented. Their performance was compared with the classical proportional control. A data acquisition card for the control was designed, built and programmed, using the 4.14 Eagle software for the design and the 3.0 Microcode Studio Plus for programming. A program in 6.0 Visual Basic, which linked up with 7.0 MatLab for fuzzy control was developed; using Mandani inference, membership functions of input and output trapezoidal and triangular; 4 rules for the DO, 3 for pH and 3 for temperature, with connector and type and for defuzzifying the centroid method. Evaluation of biomass production was performed by determining dry weight and growth kinetics with the Gompertz model.The fuzzy control performance of DO, pH and temperature showed superiority in proportional control, characterized by a very close control to set point and a low standard deviation. DO Fuzzy control at 6 ppm, pH of 6 and 30°C, allowed to have the greatest dry weight of 7.65±0.02 g/L and the highest maximum growth of 1.51±0.2, the lowest adaptation phase of 0.27±0.01 h and the greatest specific speed of Candida utilis growth rate of 0.7±0.01 h-1