Section: Application Domains

Experimentation in ecology

When confronted to the modeling of biological processes, a very important question arises: how to model the kinetics of biological reactions that take place in bioreactors? In order to evaluate the structure of mass-balance model kinetics (testing whether a kinetics is better described by substrate- or by density-dependent kinetics) and in the framework of the TREASURE network (cf. Section 8.1.5 ), new experiments have been planned in collaboration with the CBS in Sfax. Indeed, this Tunisian research center operates membranes bioreactors that are particularly adapted to make experiments in which a series of reactors is used such that no biomass circulates from one tank to another. Based on a qualitative analysis of steady states of such a process configuration (cf. [52] ), we should be able to characterize the kinetics nature of an anaerobic process. The results will be used to update traditional simple models used for control design, such as the AMOCO model that is being studied and extended to describe a larger class of processes within the PhD thesis of Boumediene Benyahia.