Tracking Trajectories in a Continuous Anaerobic Bioreactor Employing a Nonlinear Proportional Controller

M. Isabel Neria-Gonzalez, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del I.P.N. (CINVESTAV-IPN)
Ricardo Aguilar-López, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del I.P.N. (CINVESTAV-IPN)

Abstract

This work is related to the tracking of sulfate concentration trajectories in a continuous anaerobic bioreactor, where Desulfovibrio alaskensis is considered for different operation purposes. A new design of a class of nonlinear proportional control law with an adaptive gain was proposed. The proposed controller was applied to the mathematical bioreactor's model with the kinetics experimentally corroborated; this describes the dynamics of biomass, sulfate and sulfide concentrations. The open-loop stability conditions of the optimum set points and the corresponding closed-loop performances were analyzed. The proposed control law is able to track trajectories, despite sustained disturbances. An Internal Model Control (IMC) Proportional-Integral Controller was implemented for comparison purposes and the corresponding performances were illustrated via numerical experiments.