Assessment of the applicability of methods and tools in process systems engineering for fermentation processes

This project looks at how well process systems engineering (PSE) methods and tools can model and simulate complex biochemical fermentations. It focuses on three pathways: alcoholic, lactic, and propanoic fermentation. The work uses the commercial simulator Aspen Plus together with a custom chemical‑kinetics routine written as a Fortran User Model. By linking the two, we can calculate mass and energy balances accurately, even though bioreactors show strong non‑linear behavior and biological complexity. We checked the simulation results against experimental data taken from the literature. The main way we measured accuracy was the residual standard deviation (RSD). Most of the simulated models match the experimental benchmarks closely, often giving RSD values

under 10 %. However, some differences appear, showing that standard chemical process simulators have limits in handling the thermodynamics and component interactions of very complex biological systems. The study offers a step‑by‑step method for chemical‑engineering graduate students to analyze, design, and improve biochemical reactors. It helps identify where simulations stop being reliable and shows how custom kinetic subroutines can fill the gap between traditional PSE tools and real‑world bioprocess design.

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