Comparison of the simulation of alcoholic fermentation process in batch, continuous in series, continuous in parallel, and BatCon, using a kinetic model in Aspen Plus®

In this study, it was carried out a simulation of the fermentation process considering different operational arrangements such as: batch, continuous series, parallel and continuous, and batch and continuous (Batcon). These processes were studied using two ways, the first one being a preliminary analysis with a conversion reactor where the fermentation process is represented by stechiometric equations and the second one is a simulation using reactors RBATCH and RCSTR where the kinetics is introduced through the Fortran subroutine; for comparison and analysis of their impact on process yield. The simulations were performed using the commercial software Aspen Plus ® and the condition considered were, temperature of 28 °C, flow rate of 150 kg / h and a concentration of 20 w / w of glucose in the feed. Comparison of the fermentation processes in batch, batch and continuous (BatCon) using the conversion reactor simulation showed that the yield values did not varied much, with results close to 89%. The best yields were obtained in continuous processes (series and parallel), reaching 93% yield. On the fermentation processes simulations was used kinetic Fortran as a subroutine and was possible realize differences in yield when batch was present on the process, since the use of the kinetic process represents a more realistic way. This is due to operating conditions provided for the conversion of glucose to ethanol and by-products being the input data specified as 90.5% of the glucose converted to ethanol, trying to simulate real processes conditions of and alcohol production plant.