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AssigneeNew Brunswick Scientific Co., Inc.
InventorsLaszlo K. Nyiri, Gizella M. Toth, Douglass V. Parmenter, Calidas S. Krishnaswami
Estimating the term…
Continuous control of biosynthesis process conditions on the basis of measurable quantities in the off-gases from the process and calculated quantities derived from said measured quantities provides for optimization of reaction conditions with respect to maximum output rate of selected product. Where the selected product is a mix of cell mass and ethyl alcohol ranging from virtually all cell mass with negligible alcohol to the maximum alcohol content which the cell can tolerate, optimization depends on maintaining the ratio of carbon to nitrogen in the nutrient feed at a level appropriate to the desired product mix. The calculated quantities, including the time derivative of the rate of oxygen uptake, are used for essentially continuous control of the rates of feed of individual nutrients and other selected essential variables as a means of optimizing the process.
An improvement in the method of operation of a fermentation tank with the objective of producing any desired ratio of weight of ethyl alcohol to weight of cell mass, designated as EA/CM, between a maximum corresponding to the maximum concentration of ethyl alcohol which the cell can tolerate, and essentially zero, said tank being supplied with oxygen, metabolizable carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus, the weights of carbon and nitrogen supplied as compounds thereof being designated as C and N. respectively and the feed ratio of carbon to nitrogen being termed C/N, said fermentation tank being maintained at selected optimum temperature, pressure, pH and dissolved oxygen level, wherein said improvement comprises as a preliminary step:
An improvement in the method of operation of a fermentation tank with the objective of producing any desired ratio of weight of ethyl alcohol to weight of cell mass, said ratio being designated as EA/CM, between a maximum corresponding to the maximum concentration of ethyl alcohol which the cell can tolerate, and essentially zero, said tank being supplied with oxygen, metabolizable cabon, nitrogen and phosphorus, the weights of carbon and nitrogen being designated as C and N. respectively, the ratio of feed rates of C and N being designated C/N, said fermentation tank being maintained at selected optimum temperature, pressure, pH and dissolved oxygen level, wherein said improvement comprises as preliminary steps:
An improvement in the method of operation of a fermentation tank with the objective of producing any desired ratio of weight of ethyl alcohol to weight of cell mass, designated as EA/CM, between a maximum corresponding to the maximum concentration of ethyl alcohol which the cell can tolerate, and essentially zero, said tank being supplied with oxygen, metabolizable carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus, the weights of carbon and nitrogen supplied as compounds thereof being designated as C and N respectively and the feed ratio of carbon to nitrogen being termed C/N, said fermentation tank being maintained at selected optimum temperature, pressure, pH and dissolved oxygen level the functional relationships between C/N and RQ,C/N and EA/CM and RQ and EA/CM having been determined, where RQ is the ratio in mols of the rate of CO.sub.2 evolution namely dCO.sub.2 /dt, to the rate of O.sub.2 uptake namely dO.sub.2 /dt being time and said ratio being dCO.sub.2 /dO.sub.2 wherein said improvement comprises:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.