Anticipating Operational and Wash out Conditions in Biotechnological Reactors

Algorithms are developed which compute the stability boundaries of the equilibrium points of biotechnological reaction systems and which visualize these boundaries in a high dimensional state space. The algorithms predict the ultimate process behaviour from its present state and from the control input levels, using an analytical model of the system. In particular, they allow to forecast whether the process will converge to a nominal operational state or to a condition of biological wash out. The paper concentrates on systems of rank two, which encompass a wide range of potential industrial applications.