1. What is Bioprocessing?

A technique in which microorganisms, living cells, or their components are used as bio-catalyst to
produce a desired end product.
2. What are some disciplines related to bioprocessing?
o

Biochemistry

Microbiology

Genetics

Molecular Biology

Engineering

3. What the advantages of bioprocessing over chemical methods?

o

Complex organic molecules cant be produced by chemical means

Bioconversion has a higher yield

Operate at a lower temperature and pH

Isomeric compounds are easily excluded

Very Specific

4. What are the disadvantages of bioprocessing over chemical means?

o

Easily contaminated

Requires separation of wanted product

Results in biohazard waste

Relatively slow process (many steps)

5. What are the steps in bioprocessing?

o

Preparation Stage

Raw Material

Substrates

Medium

Conversion State

Biocatalysts

Downstream processing

Volume production

Purification

Final Product processing

6. What are some cell types used in bioprocessing?

o

Bacteria (gram + and -)

Fungal

Mammalian

Plant

7. What are properties of an organism that is relevant for bioprocessing?

o

Nature of Strain (Pathogenicity, Toxin Production, Strain Stability)

Genetics

Cell Culture Shape, Size and Morphology

Cell membrane and transport system

Cell nutrition

Cell Growth Kinetics

Correlation between growth and product formation

Presence of regulatory enzymes

Activities of intracellular and extracellular proteases

8. What are enzymes?

o

Protein catalyst

Can be produced by bioprocessing

Affected by pH and Temperature

Very specific

Biodegradable

9. What are enzyme properties in bioprocessing?

o

Specificity- substrate range

Stability- effect of pH and temperature range

Solubility- medium for reaction, hydrophobic vs. hydrophillic

Structure, charge and size- for purification and recovery

10. What operations are involved in general bioprocessing?

o

Agitation and mixing

Heat transfer

Size reduction and enlargement

11. What is agitation?

Agitation is a process of mixing suspension of solids in a liquid to prevent chemical, physical and thermal
gradients.
12. What are two major causes of cell damage?
o

Hydrodynamic force or shear forces

Energy from bursting bubbles

13. What are 2 types of impellers?

o

Radial flow- not as efficient

Axial flow (used for animal cells) lifts cells from the bottom

14. What are the movement of mixers?

o

The entire container moves

Container is stationary with internal device rotating

A combination of the above two

15. Which has large surface area to unit volume ratio, a large or small reactor? Which require
addition of heat and which requires removal of heat?
o

Small reactors have large surface area and require addition of heat.

Large have small surface area and require removal of heat.

16. What is distillation?

It separates chemicals by the difference in how easily they vaporize
17. What is distillation categories based on?
o

System composition- Binary and Multicomponent distillation

Processing mode- continuous or batch

Processing Sequence

-Stripping- removing Light from heavy

-Recification- removing Heavy from Light

-Fractionation- removing by Strip/Recti at the same time

-Complex Fractionation- a combination of all methods

18. How do we reduce the size of cells?

o

Mills, roller, crushers

Tissue cutting, Homogenization, and Mincing or Extrusion

Microbial tissue breaking

19. What is the purpose of size enlargement?

o

Reduce direct contact

Render powder free flowing

Prevent caking or lumping

20. What are the methods for size enlargement?

o

Pressure compactment

Tumblers and mixer agglomeration

Spray dryers