Ethanol fermentation monitoring by enzymatic Multichannel-FIA

Abstract

A four channel FIA-System was developed for the online process monitoring of an anaerobic bacterial ethanol fermentation with Zymomonas mobilis in a fluidized bed reactor. Glucose, ethanol, acetaldehyde and L-lactate are determined by fluorimetric detection of enzymatically formed NADH. The principle of synchronized merging zone was combined with paralel configurated gas diffusion and dialysis. Membran separation serves for the elimination of proteins and proteases and for the dilution of the analytes. The FIA equipment is connected to the fluidized bed reactor with a crossflow microfiltration module. By means of an intelligent valve configuration the measuring device is controlled by an user-friendly software running on a personal computer. All steps of the process analytical regime i.e. detection, calibration, recalibration and calculation of the analytical results are computer controlled.