Performance of hybrid electronic tongue and HPLC coupled with chemometric analysis for the monitoring of yeast biotransformation

Abstract Monitoring of process parameters is of great importance in the field of bioprocess control. In this work two analytical systems: hybrid electronic tongue combining potentiometric and voltammetric detection (hET) and HPLC coupled with Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis (HPLC-PLS) have been evaluated and compared as novel, rapid techniques for biotransformation monitoring. They were applied for the analysis of yeast culture media during batch fermentation carried out for 2-phenylethanol production. Work-flow of numerical analysis of sample fingerprints provided by these both techniques was presented. The ability of hET-PLS and HPLC-PLS to predict main process parameters, such as optical density, time of culture, glucose and 2-phenylethanol concentration was studied. Both non-selective analytical systems revealed to be suitable tools for yeast fermentation monitoring, while slightly better results were obtained by hET-PLS.