3.30 am - 5.

00 pm 05-10-2020
LECTURE-5
ROLE OF BIOCHEMICAL ENGINEERS IN THE DEVELOPMENT
OF MODERN FERMENTATION PROCESSES
 Development and Design of Contamination free Philosophy
 Prior to fermentation of penicillin, pure culture requirement of
fermentation processes was not strictly controlled.
 In old days, processes such as production of yeast, citric acid and
gluconic acid were controlled from contamination by using pH
unfavourable for growth of contaminating microorganism.
 In other cases the concentration of ingredients and product were
sufficiently high to get rid of contamination, such as in production
of sorbose, acetone, ethanol and butanol etc.
 Later tow fermentation i.e. ethanol and butanol are carried out by
anerobic process, so the contamination by aerobes does not arise.
 Earlier, the problem being faced by the engineers in penicillin
fermentation was design and operation of a completely pure culture
in a deep aerated vessel with an ideal environment in order to avoid
contamination.
 The prevention of contamination was a formidable problem for the
engineers.
 Due to contamination, many fermentation plants were not able to
reach the maximum productivity.
 Perhaps the most notable contribution the biochemical engineers
made was the development of sterile techniques, or the
"contamination-proof" philosophy in the design and operation of
the bioreactor and its associated maze of piping.
 The sterility of the equipments and the fermentation medium is
achieved first, then inoculum is allowed to pass into the bioreactor
without contamination.

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 Complete sterility is maintained by prevention of entry of the
contaminating microorganisms during fermentation.
 In order to accomplish these objectives, the biochemical engineers
 changed the methods of vessel fabrication,
 revised gasketing, piping and valve design and
 devised new methods of steam-sealing possible points of
contaminants entry
 methods for removing samples and adding materials aseptically
to the bioreactor were also devised.
 Mechanical Operations
 The engineers also designed air-compression and delivery
systems
 They devised efficient methods for agitation (mixing) and
aeration (upply of air without contamination).
 Heat Management
 The engineers devised and developed the system for removal of
heat during fermentation.
 If needed, the method for heat supply to the system (bioreactor)
was also devised.
 Solution of Instrumentation and Process Control Problems
 The engineers also solved the problems of instrumentation and
process control during fermentation w.r.t. indication, recording
and control of temperature, pH, agitation, flow rate etc.
 Design of Pilot Plant and its Scale-up
 Success of any chemical process depends demonstration on
pilot-plant equipment and its further scale-up
 The biochemical engineers made important contribution to this
facet of modern fermentation technology

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 Contribution in the Area of Bioseparation

 The process is not complete until the product is finally isolated
 Special isolation techniques involving filtration, extraction,
adsorption and concentration were developed by the
biochemical engineers in order to recover the products in good
yield.
 They also devised the equipments to recover products which
are within the cell by cell disruption, such as the design of
homoginizer, ultrasonicator and ball mills etc.
 For product purification chromatographs, ultrafiltration
modules, electrophoresis equipments were also developed
 For polishing and drying of the final products crystallizers and
dryers are designed by the engineers
 In a nut shell, the biochemical engineers plays important role in
RIPP, i.e. removal of insolubles (R), isolation of the product (I),
purification (P) and final polishing (P)
 Contribution in the Development of Software
 Biochemical engineers have great contribution in the
development of software for design, scale-up and control of the
modern fermentation processes.
 The simulation software which are used in the modern
bioprocess development were not possible without the support
of the biochemical engineers.
 Further Contributions
 While the laboratory scientist – the microbiologist, the
biochemist, and microbial geneticist-continues to discover and
advance desirable interactions in between.


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 Engineers must control these interactions and translate

laboratory results to production-scale operation in the
economic manner.
 The biochemical engineer, therefore, must continue to develop,
design, and scale-up new fermentation processes.
 Improvement in management, as well as in equipment, is
needed to accomplish these aims.
 In addition, he must continue to operate his fermentation plant
safely and efficiently, and he must see that his products meet
the requirements of his customers and the standard set by his
industry.
 Very likely, as in the past, complete engineering knowledge of a
process with which he may be concerned will be unavailable at
the time he needs it.
 Therefore, he must be prepared to offer engineering experience
and judgment when needed.

STATUS OF BIOCHEMICAL ENGINEERING IN THE

FERMENTATION INDUSTRY
 As already discussed, engineers had great contribution to the
development of modern penicillin fermentation processes.
 The greatest contribution was the development of the contamination
free philosophy, i.e. pure culture technique carried out in aerated and
agitated deep tank fermenters
 This technique similar to its antecedent used for yeast propagation,
capable of being maintained under aseptic conditions even when
vigorously aerated.

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 The technique is now applied every where in the modern fermentation
industries for production of other antibiotics, amino acids, steroids,
enzymes etc.
 Unit Operations
 Fermentation processes have in common many of the familiar
chemical engineering unit operations
 For example, aerobic fermentation involves the "mixing" of three
heterogeneous phases, i.e. microorganisms, medium and air
 Other unit operations include "mass transfer" of oxygen from the
air to the organisms
 Also the "heat transfer" within the system (medium in the
reactor)
 Flow of material i.e. the heating or cooling fluid, nutrients and
fermentation broth involve the "fluid mechanics" operation.
 Analysis of fermentation by unit operations techniques has added
greatly to the understanding of their behaviour
 Biochemical engineering has made major contribution in
establishing the theoretical bases for design of equipments for
large volume of sterile medium and air.
 Close cooperation between the biologists and engineers are
essential for devising logical methods for screening large numbers
of strain for translation of the shake-flask and pilot-plant data to
large scale full-fledged production scale.
 Unit Processes
 After careful analysis, many industrially significant fermentation
processes show that there are common reactions from chemical as
well as physical view points.
 Fermentation processes may be classified by the reaction
mechanisms involved in conversion of the raw materials into
desired products.

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 These include reductions, sinple and complex oxidations,

substrate conversions, transformations, hydrolyses,
polymerizations, complex biosynthesis and the formation of cells.
 Unit processes classification provides a ready catalogue of the
chemical activities and abilities of the microorganisms for
biochemists.
 The more important thing is that it provides logical approach for
examination of the reaction mechanisms.
 Process Design
 Fermentation may be viewed as a catalyzed chemical reaction in
which enzyme is a catalyst and the cellular material the catalyst
support.
 Therefore, design for fermentation processes requires an
understanding of stoichiometry and reaction kinetics.
 In design of the batch fermentation, the requirement for kinetics
was often not felt.
 However, with the development and advancement of continuous
fermentation processes, requirement for kinetics has increasingly
become important.
 Now the biochemical engineers are making significant
contribution to the design of continuous as well as batch
fermentation processes based upon chemical reaction kinetics.
 The significance successful process control cannot be ignored for
successful bioprocess design.
 Sterilizable and stable pH, temperature, DO and other probes are
now standard equipments.
 The measurement of CO2 redox potential, specific ions and
glucose level have been developed.

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 Successful development of control devices permits greater

economic benifits in substrate utilization and power consumption.
 Advanced instrumentation coupled with computer software and
linked to process control) are being applied to fermentations.

MICROBIOLOGY
 DEFINITION AND INTRODUCTION

 SIGNIFICANCE

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 CLASSIFICATION OF CELLS

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 CLASSIFICATION BASED ON STRUCTURE

 PROCARYOTES

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 EUCARYOTIC CELLS OR EUCARYOTES

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EUCARYOTES

Animal Cell

Plant Cell

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Spore
Bacterial spores serve largely as a resting, or dormant, stage in the
bacterial life cycle, helping to preserve the bacterium through periods of
unfavourable conditions. Spore production is particularly common
among Bacillus and Clostridium bacteria, several species of which are
disease-causing. Many bacterial spores are highly durable and can
germinate even after years of dormancies.

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EUCARYOTES

CLASSIFICATION OF CELLS BASED ON MORPHOLOGY

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