This book is based on the contributions to the IFAC-Workshop “Mass Spectro metry in Biotechnological Process Analysis and Control” held in Graz, Austria from 23 to 24 October 1986. The idea to organize this workshop and further to prepare these proceedings was stimulated by the following facts. Biotechnological processes urgently need better on-line instrumentation. Mass spectrometry (MS) offers a great potential to especially analyse gases and volatile compounds. It is, however, considered that this potential by far is not exhausted. The main reason for this is that MS often still is considered to be a very expensive technique requiring the permanent attention of a MS expert. In addition methods have not yet been developed to a user friendly state. On-line MS-methods are available to a certain extent, but need further development. To stimulate such development an interdisciplinary effort is necessary. Needs of industrial and university users and experience of physicists and instrument manufacturers have to be brought into a hopefully fruitful discussion. An introductory article describes the bioprocess background including a brief summary of the state of the art in bioprocess sensor and parameter estimation development, and the potential MS offers for bioprocess monitoring. In the first chapter on “Instrumentation and Gas Analysis” a general overview on some developments in MS-instrumentation is given initially by Schmid. Then the presently available instrumentation for bioprocess monitoring is discussed by instrument manufacturers (Winter; Schaefer and Schultis; Bartman).
