With new reactor, industrial control techniques are improved

At Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Medellin, experts are trying to convince companies to optimize their processes. In order to do this, a new bioreactor is being designed, in which the Dynamic Processes Research Group Kalman is going to apply all the theories that they have developed for several years.

The interdisciplinary team from Universidad Nacional de Colombia, which is also formed by Chemical Engineering and Control Engineering students, is trying to implement an instrumentation and control system to perform better experiments and measurements.

"Now, we want to perform some tests in the lab with a bioreactor for the production of ethanol, and then start offering it as an option to demonstrate that the processes implemented are working," explained Lina María Gómez Echevarría, a professor at the Mechatronics School of the Faculty of Mines.

According to this professor, with this system it is possible to protect the lots from perturbations and changes of temperature and guarantee that the production (no matter the type) reaches the desired conditions.

"Automation and control is the way in which the user programs according to his/her needs. With this implementation, the process reaches the final conditions by its own," mentioned the professor.

This piece or work consists in adapting the equipment to perform the experiments with sensors and a user"s interface to identify the measurements of the processes being tested.

"On this case, we measure the temperature and pH through a communication system that give us the measurements to make the calculations in the interface and facilitate the behavior of the system," explained Luis Miguel Gómez, a student of Control Engineering.

So far, the bioreactor has successfully being adapted, and when its instrumentation process is finished, a number of tests are going to be performed to evaluate the initial conditions and thus obtaining the projected production, on this case, ethanol.