Mathematical analysis of batch reactor performance for the enzymatic synthesis of cephalexin: Laplace Homotopy perturbation method and Adomian decomposition method

Abstract

In this article, a mathematical model of diffusion reaction in kinetically controlled cephalexin synthesis in the batch reactor with penicillin acylase immobilized in glyoxyl-agarose is analyzed. The kinetic model is a non-linear non-stead-state reaction–diffusion equation with non-linear terms related to the Fick’s law. We have presented the approximate analytical expression for the non-steady-state non-linear reaction–diffusion equation by utilizing the Laplace homotopy perturbation method (LHPM) and for steady-state by using LHPM and Adomian decomposition method (ADM). The approximate analytical solution obtained from these methods proved that they are fit for every values of the reaction–diffusion and kinetic parameters. We also present the numerical solution of the considered reaction–diffusion equation by using pdepe tool in MATLAB software. When comparing the semi-analytical solution with the numerical solution, a satisfactory result is noted for all the possible values of the parameters. The closed-form analytical expressions for the effectiveness factor in non-steady and steady-state conditions are obtained and analyzed using LHPM and ADM.