Project Objectives

Objectives and results of the project:

The main objective of the project is experimental analysis and efficiency increasing through automation methods of a complex plant of biorefinery type (coupling between an anaerobic digestor and a photobioreactor). A structure based on the HIL (Hardware in the Loop) concept will be adopted that means a coupling between an experimental structure (photobioreactor for the microalgae photosynthetic growth process) and a software structure (anaerobic digestor) accordingly to the figure below:

The specific objectives are the following:

1. The analisys of the processes (anaerobic digestion and photosynthetic growth of microalgae) on the basis of mathematical models. They will be treated separately and coupled on the basis of experiments carried out on the pilot plant dedicated to the control of photobioreactor and the plant of biorefinary type.

2. The synthesis of the control algorithms (optimal and fuzzy) for both processes (complex and strong no-linear processes) treated separately and coupled on the HIL structure adopted within the project and their tested in numerical simulation regime;

3. The achievement of the biorefinery plant in HIL structure, with the basic software and hardware components;

4. Performing experiments in order to validate the control of the photobioreactor and of the biorefinery plant.

Expected results:

1. A pilot plant of biorefinary type, designed on the basis of a HIL structure;

2. A control system of the microalgae photosynthetic growth process (biomass production);

3. A control system of the anaerobic digestion process validated through numerical simulation;

4. A control system for the biorefinary plant achieved based on the HIL concept.