FERMENTATION project (Accurate fermentation monitoring through multisensorial approach) is part of the PRIN project, promoted by MUR.

It is coordinated by Prof. Consolatina Liguori, from the University of Salerno, with the responsibility of Dr. Andrea Ponzoni from CNR INO and Dr. Gianluca Barile from the University of L’Aquila, involving the participation of Prof. Vittorio Ferrari and Prof. Marco Baù from University of Brescia and CNR-INO.

Fermentation is a complex biochemical reaction that can be triggered in an autonomous or controlled way in organic substances subjected to certain conditions and/or to suitable catalysts. The monitoring of a set of chemicals during the fermentation process allows the producers to suddenly operate to modify the process parameters with the aim of optimizing the different phases and maximizing the final quality of the final product.
This project Fermentation aims to study the integration among bio-, gas- and density-sensors to evaluate a broad set of fermentation markers in the liquid and the volatile phases. Since none of these parameters is fully representative of the process, but instead their combination could be, a data fusion from this wide range of sensors/parameters will be employed to accurately characterize the fermentation processes of alcoholic beverages.

The main objectives of the project are:

• The development of a set of gas sensors to detect key volatiles released during the fermentation process;
• The realization of ad-hoc designed resonating systems to track density variations during fermentation;
• The development of biosensors to monitor in situ the fermentation process;
• The development of transducers integrating the conditioning and the pre-processing units for the aforementioned devices;
• Evaluating the fermentation status by means of data fusion techniques.

If you want to know more about the project, please contact andrea.ponzoni@ino.cnr.it

The project “Fermentation” is funded by the European Union – Next Generation EU.
Website PRIN: https://prin.mur.gov.it/