Adaptive nonlinear model based predictive control of distributed plants involving transport phenomena, described by hyperbolic partial differential equations are considered. The method proposed relies on a control Lyapunov function derived from Sontag's formula and in a stable observer and tackles directly the infinite dimension class of systems without finite dimension approximations. The control of plug flow nonlinear systems (a tubular heat exchanger, a distributed collector solar filed and a tubular reactor) are presented as examples to illustrate the method.