modeling of single cell protein production from cheese whey using tanks-in-series model

in this work, mathematical modeling of microbial(trichosporon sp.) biomass production in a stirred tankbioreactor and in an external airlift bioreactor has beeninvestigated. a model based on a tanks-in-seriesmodel without back-flow has been used to simulate theproduction of single cell protein in the external airliftbioreactor under an unsteady condition and withoutoxygen limitation, utilizing cheese whey as a substrate.the kinetic parameters of cell growth and substrateconsumption including µm(maximum specific growth),ks(growth associated parameter), γ(saturated constant) and λ(non growth associated parameter) weredetermined based on experimental data derived fromthe batch process in the stirred tank reactor and thekinetic model, which resulted in 0.59 h-1, 46.84 g/l,0.383 and 1.275, respectively. estimated biokineticparameters were applied to find the profiles of biomassand lactose in the airlift bioreactor. matlab softwarewas used to find kinetic parameters and solve theequations of the tanks-in-series model. the number ofstages of the tanks-in-series obtained equals 16.