Fermentation

Equipment Specifications

  • 35 L glass fermentation vessel.
  • Ferm Solutions FermPro yeast for ethanol production.   
  • MicroMotion® Coriolis meter to measure mass density of the fermentation contents and infer alcohol and sugar concentrations.
  • Custom made low flow, low pressure drop flowmeter to measure the carbon dioxide evolution rate and infer the ethanol production rate.
  • Rosemount® pH probe and transmitter to monitor the fermentation for contaminating bacteria.
  • Temperature control using a Fisher® control valve and an external heat exchanger.
  • Rosemount® guided wave radar level transmitter for monitoring the fermenter level.
  • Equipment is operated using the DeltaV™ DCS.
  • Alarms and interlocks are present for process safety.       

Possible Experimental Objectives

  • Batch fermentation operation.
  • Fed-batch fermentation operation.
  • Continuous fermentation operation.
  • Analysis of fermentation kinetics using material and energy balances.
Fermenter