A NEW BALANCE EQUATION OF REDUCING EQUIVALENTS FOR DATA CONSISTENCY CHECK AND BIOPROCESS CALCULATION

The reducing equivalent (RE) balance is a basic equation for data cons istency check and calculations of bioprocesses. The macroscopic approa ch is often used because it does not require detailed knowledge of met abolic pathways. In this work, the conventional Minkevich-Eroshin bala nce equation is examined with data of anaerobic glycerol conversion by Klebsiella pneumoniae and Clostridium butyricum as examples. It is sh own that the Minkevich-Eroshin equation is very insensitive to measure ment errors in products of less dominance and/or with relatively low r eductance degree. Relatively large deviations from experimental values are encountered when the Minkevich-Eroshin equation is used for the c alculations of these products. To overcome some of these shortcomings an improved RE balance equation is proposed that is based on 'reductan ce equations' of substrate conversion into the individual carbon conta ining products (including biomass). The proposed new equation signific antly improves the performance of the RE balance equation for data con sistency check and for the calculations of unknown variables with rela tively low reductance degree. The rationale for this is that it consid ers merely the REs that really participate in the bioreactions. The us e of the proposed method requires no detailed knowledge of metabolic p athways and is therefore of macroscopic nature. It can be reduced to t he pathway balance equation if the pathways are known.