Jérôme Morchain
Jérôme Morchain
Full Professor
- +33 (0)6 89 56 25 29
- jerome.morchain@insa-toulouse.fr
- Orcid
- Research Gate
Actual position and research subject
The main topic of my research activities is the modelling and numerical simulation of bioreactors. I am particularly interested in the interactions between turbulent mixing, interphase mass transfer and the dynamic behavior of biological systems.
The hydrodynamics is investigated through numerical and experimental techniques (PIV). The choice of numerical tool is adapted to the scale and the objective of the simulation: multiphase RANS is preferred for the description of industrial bioreactors, LES is preferred for a detailed investigation of mixing in stirred tanks and DNS is adopted for the studies at the cell microscale. These simulations are often complemented with Lagrangian particle tracking to get the information regarding the temporal fluctuations experienced by the cells along their trajectory in the bioreactor.
In parallel, I also work on dynamic biological models for microbial populations. A first step was the decoupling between the growth rate of the population and the concentration of nutrient in the liquid phase. I introduced the concept of “non-equilibrium” as the mismatch between the cell demand and the environment supply. The second step deals with the modeling of mass transfer between the cell and the liquid (nutrient uptake). It appears that cells modulate their uptake capacity dynamically thus responding to the concentration fluctuation they experience. The difference between the cell needs for growth and the actual cell uptake provides a quantification of the amount of carbon that has to be diverted into secondary metabolic pathways. In the past ten years I went into the population balance formalism for biological populations using most existing numerical techniques. Owing to these improvements it is now possible to relate the heterogeneities in the liquid phase to the cell population diversity, such that macro and micromixing issues are now imprinted into cell metabolism, growth and division.
Education and Diploma
Full professor at INSA-TBI
Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches : Modeling of bioreactors via a coupled approach using CFD and Population Balance Equations.
PhD in Microbiology (INSA Toulouse) Analysis and modelling of the couplings between biological and physical phenomena in large scale bioreactors
Engineer degree from Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Ingénieurs de Génie Chimique de Toulouse (Option Automatique et Simulation)
Teaching
- Scientific Programming, Applied mathematics, Fluid mechanics (incl. computational), Chemical Reactor engineering, Process Control, Unit Operation
Others
- Supervised or co-supervised: 14 PhD students and 5 post-doct
List of selected publications
[1] J. Morchain, J.-C. Gabelle, A. Cockx, A coupled population balance model and CFD approach for the simulation of mixing issues in lab-scale and industrial bioreactors, AIChE J. 60 (2014) 27–40. https://doi.org/10.1002/aic.14238.
[2] M. Pigou, J. Morchain, Investigating the interactions between physical and biological heterogeneities in bioreactors using compartment, population balance and metabolic models, Chemical Engineering Science 126 (2015) 267–282. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ces.2014.11.035.
[3] V. Gernigon, M.A. Chekroun, A. Cockx, P. Guiraud, J. Morchain, How Mixing and Light Heterogeneity Impact the Overall Growth Rate in Photobioreactors, Chemical Engineering & Technology 42 (2019) 1663–1669. https://doi.org/10.1002/ceat.201900102.
[4] M. Pigou, J. Morchain, P. Fede, M.-I. Penet, G. Laronze, New developments of the Extended Quadrature Method of Moments to solve Population Balance Equations, Journal of Computational Physics 365 (2018) 243–268. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcp.2018.03.027.
[5] V. Quedeville, J. Morchain, P. Villedieu, R.O. Fox, A critical analysis of Powell’s results on the interdivision time distribution, Scientific Reports 9 (2019) 8165. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-44606-4.
[6] F. Maluta, M. Pigou, G. Montante, J. Morchain, Modeling the effects of substrate fluctuations on the maintenance rate in bioreactors with a probabilistic approach, Biochemical Engineering Journal 157 (2020) 107536. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bej.2020.107536.
[7] J. Morchain, V. Quedeville, R.O. Fox, P. Villedieu, The closure issue related to liquid–cell mass transfer and substrate uptake dynamics in biological systems, Biotechnology and Bioengineering 118 (2021) 2435–2447. https://doi.org/10.1002/bit.27752.
[8] V. Ngu, J. Morchain, A. Cockx, Spatio-temporal 1D gas–liquid model for biological methanation in lab scale and industrial bubble column, Chemical Engineering Science 251 (2022) 117478. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ces.2022.117478.
[9] C. Mayorga, J. Morchain, A. Liné, Reconstruction of the 3D hydrodynamics in a baffled stirred tank using Proper Orthogonal Decomposition, Chemical Engineering Science 248 (2022) 117220. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ces.2021.117220.
[10] D. Thi Doan, A. Kremling, J. Morchain, A Monte-Carlo approach for the simulation of microbial population dynamics in an heterogeneous scale-down bioreactor, AIChE Journal 70 (2024) e18358. https://doi.org/10.1002/aic.18358.