(663d) Evaluation of Scaling Factors for Industrial Bioprocesses: Application to the Production of Ethanol From Glucose

Before construction, biochemical plants require previous studies and demonstrations at scales smaller than industrial. Therefore, a good scaling-up process is mandatory. Traditionally, scaling-up from chemical and biochemistry process are carried out following highly heuristic procedures. Dimensionless factors are frequently used but, these procedures are associated to transport phenomenon of mass, energy and/or movement in the process. These procedures frequently have minor success in the definitive scaling-up process. The purpose of this research was to obtain a mathematical methodology, based on a Semi-physical Phenomenological Model, for the calculation of scaling up factors in biochemical processes. The methodology maintains the operating point and regime of the process constant after scaling up and is validated using the fermentation process for ethanol fuel production from glucose as a test case. In this research we obtained a highly analytical methodology based in the matrix Hankel for the determination of the hierarchy of dynamics from process to scale up bioprocesses and applied this methodology at semi-industrial scale in the production of ethanol from glucose. We determined the conditions at laboratory scale that are essential for scaling up. These conditions were used to identify with the methodology it was possible to determine that changes in the operation regime occur when the system effective volume are higher. The critical volume for maintaining the process regime is 3 liter. For higher volumes the order of importance of the effect of the different dynamics in the process is: product, biomass, substrate and temperature. The results obtained of the designs parameters are error minor to 10% according to the values report in the scientific literature for laboratory and report to industrial scale.