In this screencast, we're going to go through
an example of simulating a fermentation using
the SuperPro designer software.
Now this problem gives you a number of pieces
of information that would help you with a
simulation, setting up a fermentation.
First and foremost, it tells you what the
stoichiometry of the fermentation reaction
is, and you can see that here in the middle,
and then we get certain information about
the feed and exit streams.
The rest of this problem can be seen below,
in which we're given temperature data as well
as some enthalpy data that we're going to
use.
The main question is that we want to determine
the amount of time required to completely
consume the reaction components and determine
what the rate-limiting reactant is for this
system.
So to do this, we're going to use SuperPro
Designer.
Now when you start SuperPro Designer, you're
going to get to screen that asks you whether
or not you want to open an existing process
or start a new one.
So click on the start a new process, and click
OK.
It will then ask you whether you want to do
batch or continuous operations.
Since this is a batch fermentation, we're
going to make sure that batch is clicked,
and then click OK.
So this brings us to our main screen, which
becomes our process flow diagram.
Now, I'm going to do 2 things.
Since we're working with just a specific section,
I'm going to rename that section, which you
can do here.
I'm going to call it fermentation.
So if we were doing a large process where
we had multiple different steps that process,
including separations, we can label each of
those sections so that when we do our cost
analysis, we can focus in on these areas.
Now branches can also be used if you have
side reactions that you're working on, or
other problems that come into that main branch,
so I will rename this branch fermentation
reactor, and hopefully you can reference the
document that is linked next to this video
so that you can figure out what species we
need to add, and that's the first thing we
need to do is identify the components that
we're going to use for this reactor and this
system.
So we go to tasks, and we can go to pure components,
and register, edit/view properties.
And at this point we want to make sure we
add all of the things involved in the reaction,
so as you saw before, we need to add biomass,
we need to add MAB, monoclonal antibody, we
also need to add air, and media, so I'm going
to start going through those, how to add that.
So let's first add biomass.
You can either search for it in this box,
or scroll down and find it in our list.
So you can see we have biomass right here,
and we click on the register button to add
it to our list.
Now I'm going to do this for carbon dioxide
as well as sodium chloride.
Now you see that an error message came up
saying that we don't have all the physical
properties needed.
However, we don't need a heat of vaporization
for this reaction, so we'll just click OK
and know that it's not in the database of
properties.
Now let's say I added the wrong chemical by
accident, I added this sodium chlorate.
We can always click on this X up here to remove
it.
Now there are a couple components listed in
the problem statement that aren't in this
list, so we add a new component by clicking
on this wand icon up in the top right corner.
So here we can add whatever we would like.
So I'll type in impurity, since that was one
of the things listed, and not have to worry
about all the other things.
Hit OK, then I'll also add media.
Now that you have all your components added
to this problem, we can click on OK.
Now we need to add our fermenter.
So we can go to unit procedures, and we're
working with a batch vessel, specifically
a fermenter.
You'll see an icon that says add step, so
you click anywhere on your screen, and we
now have our fermenter.
So you can see what streams we have entering
and exiting our fermenter.
So we need to label those streams and create
them in our simulation.
So create streams, we're going to go to this
icon next to the arrow that says connect mode,
and we'll click anywhere here on our chart,
and then click again at an inlet to our fermenter.
So I'll do this for our 5 streams, so we have
our 5 streams, but we would like to change
the names so they match what we had in our
problem statement.
So to do that, go back to our arrow icon,
and then click on the stream.
Right clicking will bring up some options,
where we can then choose edit tag name.
So for this one, we want to enter in water.
We can then change this to media, and so forth.
So we want to identify the streams and make
sure that the right components are in them,
so if we double click on the water stream
now, it will bring up the following menu.
We can choose which one of our components
make up that composition, and since this is
all water, clicking on water and dragging
it into the field here allows us to choose
what the conditions are for this stream.
So clicking on ingredient flows allows us
to change this value to 7800 kg/batch, since
that was the problem statement.
We can then make sure that the temperature
down here and the pressure are correct.
So we click on OK, and now we've labeled that
water stream with the correct component.
We're going to do the same thing for the media
stream.
This time, we want to make sure we have our
biomass as well as our media as the two components
that make up this stream.
We can click on ingredient flows, and set
our media stream to 5 kg/batch biomass and
375 kg/batch of media.
Again, the temperature is 25 degrees and the
pressure is 1.013 bar.
Click OK.
Now when we open up the air stream, one of
the things we can do with the air stream is
click on stock mixtures.
You can add stock mixtures to your workbooks
as you go forth and do this, but air is one
that is standard with SuperPro.
Clicking on it will allow us to change the
composition of the air, but since it's a stock
mixture, we really want it to automatically
adjust to what's necessary based on our reaction.
So we can click on this auto-adjust down below.
So depending on the stoichiometry, it will
determine how much air we need to add to our
system.
So the next and last thing that we really
do is set the fermenter up by adding operations.
So if you right click on the fermenter, right
click on add/remove operations, there's a
whole list of operations that we can control
for this fermenter.
So this process will require two charges,
one for media, so we'll add a charge, and
another one for water.
We're also going to need to heat it to its
fermentation temperature, so click on heat,
add that.
We can then add kinetic fermentation, a cooling
phase, and then transferring everything out
of the fermenter.
Now you can see that this isn't quite the
operation sequence that we want, so we need
to make sure we put things in the right order,
so we're going to charge, then we're going
to heat, we're going to ferment, cool, and
then transfer.
So once we have these set up in the right
order we can click OK, and now we have to
set them up.
So again right click on the fermenter, now
we go to operation data and start with the
first charge.
So it brings you a couple of tabs that are
important in determining how you want to set
up this reaction, so first and foremost, we're
going to charge with the water stream, and
we're going to make sure it imported the right
amount of flow, which is 7800 kg.
Now we can determine other conditions.
So for the setup time, let's use 5 minutes.
We'll use a volumetric flow rate as 100 liters
per minute.
Since this is all we want to determine with
this charge, we can then click on this tab
at the bottom which says OK, next operation.
It will take us to our charge for the other
stream.
This one we're going to click media, again
we have a mass of 380 kg.
This time we're going to have a setup time
of 20 minutes, and a mass flow rate of 10
kg/min.
We can click the next operation to move on.
This brings us to our heating operation.
Now for most fermenters and in this problem
statement, the fermentation takes place at
37 degrees, so we'll put 37 degrees here as
the final temperature, and we'll set the rate
of heating as 0.5 degrees Celsius per minute.
There's no other things that we need to set
up necessarily to do this material and energy
balance problem.
As you can see, there are a number of options
in terms of changing the utility used as well
as adding in information on the heat transfer
rate.
That's something that you would determine
on your own before simulating.
Now the fermentation is the one complicated
aspect of this process.
That's what we're focusing on, it should take
the most amount of effort.
So the final temperature is 37 degrees.
We're going to say that there's no setup time,
a 24 hour reaction time, and a specific power
of 3 kilowatts per meter cubed, in terms of
using it for agitation, mixing.
These are all default values that appeared
when we opened up the fermentation operation.
Now we can click on the volume tab and say
that the maximum allowable volume is 90%.
If we click on reactions, we need to set up
our stoichiometric reaction, so we go over
here to this flask-looking icon, and it brings
up a table where we import our reactants and
our products.
So clicking on this, we can bring in our reactant.
We know we have media, and oxygen that reaction
to form more biomass.
Obviously we need biomass in the first place,
but we don't add that as a reactant.
Carbon dioxide also forms some of what we
said was an impurity, monoclonal antibody,
and water.
So it's important at this point to make sure
we have our mass coefficient icon clicked
on, and then we're going to fill in the proper
values for this, so I'm just going through
the problem statement and doing this for our
reactants and our products.
We should have the following values, and I'll
click on OK.
Now we were told that this reaction does have
an enthalpy of reaction associated with it,
so we're going to unclick the ignore, and
we're going to make sure we type in the correct
enthalpy which is 3,687 kcal/kg, and it's
negative.
The reference temperature, or reference component,
is oxygen, and it's referenced at 37 degrees
since that's our fermentation temperature.
Now, we need to click on the reaction scheme
box up here to enter in kinetic information
related to this fermentation.
Starting on the left, we're going to click
media as our substrate, and make sure that
Monod kinetics are applied.
We're given that it has a Ks as 36 kg/L. the
reference component up here is our biomass,
and we're going to use a mu max value of 0.2
hours inverse.
For the biomass we can click here and make
sure we select the correct biomass, and that
it's first order.
Click OK, and now we're almost done with our
fermenter.
We go up to Vent/Emissions and make sure we
have the proper components coming out of the
vent.
So we're going to check the emissions box,
click on the emitted for carbon dioxide, and
then we want to set it to a specific value,
and since this is the only thing coming out
of the vent, we'll make it 100%.
We don't have a condenser at this point after
our ferementer, so we'll turn that off.
Then, we want specific data collected for
this fermenter, so we go to profiles.
We want to know what the biomass over time
looks like, as well as the monoclonal antibody
production and the media usage.
So we check those three boxes.
This will collect data for us during the simulation,
which we can then open in Excel and plot.
At this time we have everything entered that
we want, we can click OK, and the only last
process that we have to set up is the cool
and the transfer, so clicking on cool will
bring us to the cool operation.
Now, we want a final temperature of 5 degrees,
and we want to use a different utility, since
chilled water won't get us there very efficiently.
So double clicking on glycol will bring up
glycol as our utility, then we can again set
our cooling rate, so we'll use the same cooling
rate as heating rate, as the 0.5 degrees Celsius
per minute.
Clicking on the next tab will bring us to
our last operation for our transferring out.
For this operation, we're going to make sure
that 100% of the vessel contents get emptied
out with no setup time, and we're going to
set the time for this transfer as 272 minutes.
Clicking OK tells us that we have an error.
We need to select a valid stream for our port,
so just like we did before with some of the
streams, we want to select down and go to
broth to say that that's how we're going to
transfer everything out through that stream
that we labeled before, and now we have our
process fully developed.
At this point, it's probably a good idea to
save your work.
We want to solve the material and energy balances,
so this calculator icon up in the middle will
do that.
So clicking on it shows that we performed
the M&E balances successfully, and we can
click on the vent and broth streams to look
at the flowrates of each of the components.
So it's done our material and energy balances
for us.
We can also look at the broth and see what
the flowrates for the biomass and our products
will be.
Since we are interested in the composition
results with time, we can right click on a
fermenter, go to dynamic data records, and
save it in an Excel formatted file.
Click yes, and it will give us the option
of saving our data.
Opening this data and plotting it, and we
changed our secondary axis so we could better
view the monoclonal antibody production over
time, you can see that our media gets to a
value of zero right around 16 hours, which
shows us that that is our limiting reactant
in this reaction.
Now if we right click on the ferementer, we
can also click on procedure data, and that
shows us that we have a batch fermentation
cycle that requires 32 hours for this part
of the process.
Lastly, we can go to reports, and click on
material & streams, and it will generate a
report if we've saved it.
Now we've generated our full report for this
process, which gives us an idea of the operating
time, materials that we're using, it gives
us physical properties of the streams as well
as composition, it shows us the time for each
part of the process, all the operations that
we used, and all this would be very important,
especially with a large process in which this
is just one operation.
Now one last trick to show you is that because
we've set this up as a section, the fermentation
section, we can go to edit section properties
and we can change the color of this area by
clicking on the following.
So say we want to label all this as red.
Hopefully this gives you a good idea of how
to run some parts of SuperPro, especially
with setting up a fermentation.
