Ethanol Fermentation Simulator

BASIC ETHANOL FERMENTATION SIMULATION

Conceptual representation of the fundamental biochemistry used to evaluate, calculate, and simulate yeast growth and ethanol metabolism. Based on the Embden-Meyerhof-Parnas (glycolytic) pathway, the simulation applies the stoichiometric conversion of one mole of glucose into two moles of ethanol and two moles of carbon dioxide, coupled with ATP generation that drives Saccharomyces cerevisiae biomass formation. Core scientific inputs include substrate concentration, specific growth rate (μ), biomass yield coefficient (Y_X/S), product yield coefficient (Y_P/S), and Monod kinetics for sugar uptake, providing the foundational framework for predicting cell growth, sugar consumption, and ethanol production over time...

Interactive two-part suite pairing a Medium Calculator with a Time-Course Simulator that share live, auto-synced state. The Medium Calculator back-calculates fermentable sugar demand, moisture-corrected feedstock mass, enzyme loadings, and a 24-row nutrient salt list from user targets (ethanol volume, titer, and one of nine feedstocks from purified sugars to molasses), with a mass-balance closure check. The Simulator integrates the resulting fermentation forward in time via RK4, coupling Monod substrate kinetics, Hill-type ethanol inhibition, Gaussian temperature/pH factors, Pirt maintenance, stress-driven glycerol overflow, ethanol- and thermally-amplified cell death, and Michaelis–Menten starch hydrolysis with Q₁₀ enzyme inactivation...

Industrial adaptation of the Advanced Ethanol Fermentation Simulation, modified to account for the scale-dependent factors that govern commercial bioreactor operation. The simulation incorporates industrial mash composition derived from corn liquefaction, elevated initial sugar loadings characteristic of very-high-gravity (VHG) fermentation, simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) kinetics, and the heat-, mass-, and oxygen-transfer constraints of large-volume vessels. Additional industrial parameters include batch turnaround time, yeast pitching strategy and recycle, nutrient supplementation, contamination risk factors, cooling load, ethanol stripping by CO₂ off-gas, and final beer ethanol titer feeding the downstream distillation train...