Digital Twin in biomanufacturing: challenges and opportunities towards its implementation

The domain of industrial biomanufacturing is enthusiastically embracing the concept of Digital Twin, owing to its promises of increased process efficiency and resource utilisation. However, Digital Twin in biomanufacturing is not yet clearly defined and this sector of the industry is falling behind the others in terms of its implementation. On the other hand, some of the benefits of Digital Twin seem to overlap with the more established practices of process control and optimization, and the term is vaguely used in different scenarios. In an attempt to clarify this issue, we investigate this overlap for the specific case of fermentation operation, a central step in many biomanufacturing processes. Based on this investigation, a framework built upon a five-step pathway starting from a basic steady-state process model is proposed to develop a fully-fledged Digital Twin. For demonstration purposes, the framework is applied to a bench-scale second-generation ethanol fermentation process as a case study. It is proposed that the success or failure of a fully-fledged Digital Twin implementation is determined by key factors that comprise the role of modelling, human operator actions, and other propositions of economic value.