Modeling of microbial growth bioprocesses — Equilibria and stability analysis

Abstract

The paper addresses the analysis of nonlinear dynamical models of some microbial growth processes. Equilibrium points, stability analysis, and structural properties are studied for different bioprocesses with various kinetics structures. First, a simple micro-organism growth process on a single limiting substrate is widely analyzed. Second, a microbial growth process combined with an enzyme-catalyzed reaction is investigated. The analysis shows that these kinds of bioprocesses have multiple equilibria, stable or unstable, operational or non-operational. The partition of nonlinear model in linear and nonlinear parts via some structural properties leads to kinetic decoupling and facilitates the equilibria and stability analysis. The performed research is useful for model reduction and for the design of observers and control algorithms. To illustrate the study results, several numerical simulations are provided.