Design and development of minimalinvasive opto electronic sensor for monitoring and analysis of bioprocess

Abstract

Bioprocess monitoring is considered as one of the important activities, newlineespecially in food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries. For the obvious newlinereasons, rapid andreal-time monitoring of vital parameters provides an insight newlineof a bioprocess. Among the bioprocess parameters, pH and dissolved oxygen newlineare considered as vital parameters as these directly related to the quality, newlineproductivity and yield of the end product. Further, the quality of fermentable newlinefood items, including milk, curd, batter and grape juice is mainly dependent newlineon growth and metabolic activity of microorganisms which can be evaluated newlineby monitoring of parameters such as pH, dissolved oxygen, optical density newlineand fluorescence, continuously. In general, the cell growth of any newlinemicroorganisms involves consumption and releasing of oxygen and also other newlinemetabolic by-products.The aim of the present research work is to design and newlinedevelop a portable and minimal invasive opto-electronic sensing system to newlinemonitor these bio-process parameters, continuously. newlineThe handheld optical sensing system is integrated with components, newlinesuch as light source, photodiode, emission and excitation filters, sensing newlinemembrane, signal conditioning circuits, microcontroller and also a display newlineunit. The work synthesizes sol-gel based disposable thin-film sensing newlinemembraneswhich are made to attachwith inner surfaces of transparent newlinebioprocess columns. The developed optical system is applied for monitoring newlineEscherichia coli bacterial cell cultivation process before it has been applied newlinefor the analysis of food fermentation newline newline