Automation and Design of Real-Time Controllers for a Laboratory Scale Bioreactor

Automation of any process improves process efficiency, yield and minimizes overall cost. Bioreactors place a significant role in pharmaceutical and food processing industries. To utilize the microbes efficiently, the bioreactor should provide optimum conditions such as temperature, pH, oxygen etc. The online monitoring of bioprocess is enhanced by online control of the essential parameters to improve product yield. The effective monitoring of bioprocess is necessary to develop, optimize and maintain biological reactors at maximum efficiency. Furthermore, due to the nature, type and volume of products produced in bioprocesses, there is a strong economic incentive for process monitoring to increase yield and productivity. Most of the bioreactors are supplied with Programmable Logic Controller (PLC)based automation.Most of the PLC supports only PID controllers. The novelty in this paper is the implementation of control algorithms for multiple parameters such as temperature, pH, antifoam and Dissolved Oxygen(DO) using Lab VIEW based automation. The interfacing was done via NI Compact DAQ. Lab VIEW based automation will enhance the performance of the bioreactor with advanced control schemes. The results show that the real-time automation strategy developed in Lab VIEW is capable of simultaneously controlling the temperature, pH, DO and antifoam.