Dynamics of Environmental Bioprocesses

Dynamic environmental processes are complex; the easiest and most effective way to understanding them lies through the disciplines of dynamic modelling and computer simulation.

The prerequisite modelling fundamentals are presented in the first chapter in a manner comprehensible to students as well as to practising scientists and engineers. The second chapter describes the many environmental processes that lend themselves to modelling, for example pollution and wastewater treatment. The third part of the book provides 65 simulation examples both on the page and on an accompanying diskette in the simulation language ISIM - the first time that this has been done with a teaching book in this field - ready-to-run on any DOS personal computer. Crucially, the simulation runs can be interrupted to allow rapid interactive parameter changes and easy plotting of results; this enables the reader to get a feel for the model and system behaviour.

Jonathan B. Snape is Commercial Director of Mylnefield Research Services Ltd, the commercial subsidiary of the Scottish Crop Research Institute, a leading international centre for plant and environmental sciences. Dr Snape studied Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge and Biochemical Engineering at the University of Birmingham before undertaking post-doctoral research in Switzerland, Japan and Germany. His career also encompasses industrial experience with Unilever and IBM and was recently awarded an MBA by the University of Strathclyde.

Irving J. Dunn is retired from the ETH-Zurich, where he taught and did research in the area of biochemical engineering for over thirty years, within the Chemical Engineering Dept. His degrees are from the University of Washington and Princeton University. Dr. Dunn has published widely in his field, ranging from bioreactor design, process control, animal cell culture, and specialized wastewater treatment. His teaching and research has featured the use of modelling and simulation and has resulted in the publication of three textbooks: Biological Reaction Engineering, Environmental Bioprocesses and Chemical Engineering Dynamics.

John Ingham is now retired from Chemical Engineering at Bradford University U.K. The first of a long series of courses on the Modelling and Simulation of Dynamical Chemical Engineering Systems was begun there in 1974, sponsored by the Institution of Chemical Engineers and inspired by leave of absence at the ETH Zurich. Research areas include Liquid-Liquid Column Hydrodynamics, Extraction Process Dynamics and Biochemical Engineeering; the latter, being developed, during a further leave of absence at the GBF, Braunschweig. He is especially proud of this and the two other VCH-Wiley Modelling and Simulation books.

J. E. Prenosil was born 1939 in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Educated in Prague with PhD in Chemical Engineering, he worked in the Czechoslovak Academy of Science and various universities abroad. 1971 he moved to Switzerland with appointment at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich. 1984 he was a Visiting Professor at the University of London, Canada. His life interest is in Biochemical Engineering, design and modelling of bioreactors with immobilized biocatalysts. It has resulted in over 100 publications and co-authorship of two other books in this area. He is a co-founder of the renowned International Modelling and Simulation Courses in Braunwald, Switzerland since 1981. 1997 he was granted the Swiss Technology Transfer Award. In 2006, he retired from the ETH.