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BIO 206 DOWNSTREAM PROCESSING IN BIOTECHNOLOGY- I

ASSIGNMENT - III
1. The old process for recovering starch particles from a slurry of starch and gluten involved a
gravitational settling procedure in which the slurry was fed to one end of a table where the
starch particles settled and remained in the table and starch-free liquid was discharged from
the opposite end of the table. We have been asked to evaluate a process improvement
involving the use of continuous centrifuges. It has been reported that a starch table with the
dimensions of 2 ft wide and 120 ft long can handle a slurry feed rate of 2 gal/min. The slurry
has a viscosity of 10
-3
kg/m-s and a density difference of 100 kg/m
3
. The centrifuge has a
value of 31,500 m
2
.
(i) Calculate the effective diameter of the starch particles.
(ii) Estimate the centrifuge throughput, assuming that you can operate at 50% of the
theoretical maximum.
2. Yeast cells are recovered from a fermentation broth by using a tubular centrifuge. 60% cells
are recovered at a flow rate of 12 L/min with a rotational speed of 4000rpm. Recovery is
inversely proportional to flow rate
(i) At a constant rpm of 4000 rpm, what should be the flow rate to result in 95% cell
recovery?
(ii) To increase recovery to 95% at the same flow rate what should be the rpm of
centrifuge?

3. The Centrifugal separation of a biomass of 80 m sized cells of density 1.04 kg /m
3
was
carried out in a tubular centrifuge having a diameter of 15 cm and rotating at 1200 rev/min
(i) Calculate the residence time if the distance between the liquid surface and the axis of
rotation was 0.8 cm, the liquid density and the liquid viscosity were 1 kg/m
3
and
0.013 g/cm s respectively
(ii) What would be the volumetric capacity of the centrifuge if the length was 40 cm?
(iii) Calculate the factor
(iv) What will be the time required for centrifuging 1000 litres of broth?

4. A batch of yeast cells was disrupted using ultrasonic vibrations to release an intracellular
product. The concentration of released product in the solution was measured during the
process (see table below)
Time (s) Concentration (mg/mL)
60 3.49
120 4.56
If the ultrasonic cell disruption were carried out for 240 seconds, predict the product
concentration.

5. The ratio of protein release for bacteria in a homogenizer was found as follows:
N
%Release
20 50 80 100
1 2 20 55 80
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2 3 36 80 95
Predict the ratio of protein release if you operate the homogenizer at 45 atm and three passes.