EXECUTIVE SUMMARY FOR ENERGY AUDIT

OF

SUBMERGED FERMENTATION PLANT
-STEAM CONSUMPTION

AT BIOCON BOMMASANDRA PLANT

BY

eQube

Conducted in January 2007



SUBMERGED FERMENTATION PLANT

1. Cost of steam generation for Biocon plant >Rs.1100 per tonne.

2. Present consumption of steam in SFP 1900 tonnes per month.

3. Present methodology first heats the vessel and media by conduction
and convection method. Then introduces steam in direct contact with
media. The condensate gets drained to recovery tank.

4. Media takes over 2 to 2and Half hour to reach 100
o
C and then another
half an hour to reach 121
o
C and then held for an hour for sterilization.

5. Suggested to inject 15.25% steam at 3.5 Bar, directly to 84.75% of
desired quantity of media and then start the hold process for
sterilization.

6. Some precautionary measures to be taken at the steam injection stage,
may be some modification in the steam nozzle, to prevent thermal
knock/ hammering of the steam in the line.

7. Pilot project to be taken up with 2KL of media and then based on the
results, and fine tuning of the method/ process, the process can be
stabilized and standardized.

8. Anticipated saving of over 800Tonnes of steam in a month.

9. Savings of almost Rs. 108 lakhs per year.

10. Less than Rs. 5,00,000/- investment. Almost NIL as compared to
savings.













ENERGY AUDIT REPORT
FOR

SUBMERGED FERMENTATION PLANT
-STEAM CONSUMPTION

AT BIOCON BOMMASANDRA PLANT

BY

eQube

Conducted in January 2007

SFP OPERATION

VESSEL STERILISATION

The empty vessel is first washed with caustic solution. The caustic solution temperature
is maintained to around 90
o
C and circulated for upto 45minutes.

Then the vessel is washed with potable water.

The empty vessel is then subjected to direct steam injection for empty sterilization where
the temperature is raised to 125-`26
o
C and held for 30 minutes. Subsequently the cooling
tower water is circulated in the jacket and the temperature brought down to room/
ambient and then the lid is opened. And condensate in the vessel is drained.

ALL TANKS ARE SUBJ ECTED TO SIMILAR PROCEDURE (give or take a few steps)
before any production process is taken up.

MEDIA CHARGING

Water along with media is charged into the 10KL tank. Both are subjected to agitation to
bring the media to a homogenous solution (almost).
In TWO products, it is required to heat the water upto 60-90
o
C to make the media soluble.
After the homogenous solution is prepared, the same is pumped to the main 30KL vessel.
In case the production batch is less than 8KL, then in one shot this process is completed,
else for upto 15-16KL two 10KL tanks are used and then both are pumped
simultaneously. However, when the batch is over 16KL, then the process has to be
repeated as only two 10KL tanks can be taken into service at a time for one product.
(other tanks may be being used for other products)
This process of transferring the prepared media to main vessel may take over 30-35
minutes.

MEDIA STERILISATION

The media is subjected to pH balancing at 30
o
C and then steam at 3.5 bar is injected into
the vessel jacket and the drain is kept open for condensate to be released and collected in
recovery tank. This is done till the media temperature in the vessel reaches upto 100
o
C.
Subsequently the steam is directly injected into the vessel to raise the temperature to
121
o
C. Then the steam flow is modulated in the jacket to hold the media temperature at
this temperature upto ONE hour.
This completes the sterilization process and the temperature is brought down to 30
o
C by
Cooling tower water and chilled water as required.

At 30
o
C the tissue or culture as it is termed is mixed to the media and then the media
temperature is to be maintained at 27
o
C +3
o
C by use of cooling or chilled water
circulation in the jacket, till the fermentation process is complete.

OBSERVATIONS:

Since the steam is used in the jacket of the vessel and the vessel being of stainless steel
with very poor heat conduction properties, heat transfer rate is slow. The problem is
aggravated because of the huge quantity of the media at low temperature provides a very
huge thermal inertia to the media mass.

Hence the time required for the steam to raise the temperature of the whole media is very
high as the amount of steam that can be released into the vessel is limited. Thus the steam
also gets condensed very fast and the same has to be drained to allow the new saturated
steam to enter into the jacket of the vessel.

This process which goes on for over 2 hours results in drainage of close to 26Tonnes of
steam for each batch of 24KL of media sterilization. This matches with the monthly
consumption of 1200Tonnes for sterilization purposes only, balance 600-700 tonnes of
steam is required for holding, cleaning and sterilizing the vessels etc.

The steam neither adds to the pH nor reduces the same. At the same time whatever steam
is added to the vessel directly after the temperature in the vessel reaches 100
o
C, a bit of
same gets leaked out of the top vent. This further adds to the heat or energy loss.

RECOMMENDATION/ SUGGESTIONS

1. Since the steam neither increases nor decreases the pH, it is not detrimental to
direct addition to the media in whatever quantity.

2. Since the steam is directly added to the vessel (for empty sterilization) thereby it
is proven that it does not have any detrimental effect on the vessel or its
construction strength.

3. If the steam is directly released into the cold media, due to the presence of
condensate of the steam and existing media solution in the pipe line, the steam
coming in at approximately 40m/s gets suddenly stopped by this. This results in
severe knocking or hammering sound, which may result in cracks in the steam/ air
line inside the vessel.

4. The solution will be to introduce the steam into the vessel above the liquid level.
However this will not result in fast mixing of the steam into the media and
thereby delaying the process. Hence to have a fast mixing and quick absorbing of
steam and heat into the media, it is proposed to create a fine spray/ mist of media
on the top and then release the steam into it. Having large surface area because of
smaller size of the water droplets because of the spray, the heat can be quickly
picked up & steam can get mixed up in the media almost instantaneously. This
will solve the issue of knocking as well as the time required to heat up the media.

5. 84.75% of the desired final quantity of the media shall be charged and pH
balancing shall be done. Once stabilized, the steam at 3.5 Bar shall be introduced
directly into the vessel, instead of introducing into the vessel jacket. Till the
temperature of the media reaches 121
o
C and then the media can be held at the
same temperature as per the existing procedure. Amount of steam added will be
balance 15.25%. (see annexure steam calculations).

6. To create a mist or a fine spray of media at the top of the vessel, it is proposed to
have a line coming out of the vessel, near the bottom, connected to the SS pump
and the SS line taking the media to the top of the vessel and connected to a ring
with sprinkler nozzles. Since the whole process requires approximately 20M
3
of
media to be circulated, the pump shall be of 20M
3
/Hr capacity with a static head
of 25m.

7. Modification in vessel by introducing a ring with nozzles in the top needs to be
undertaken, which will be connected to by a SS pump with a SS line. The line size
shall be of 3 line. Pump shall be of 2.2KW rating. We can consider 6 nozzles in
the ring inside the vessel.


INVESTMENT:

For each vessel

Pipe line Rs 20,000/-
Nozzles with cost of installation 5,000/-
Inline Pump with valves and installation 1,25,000/-

Hence for 4 such vessels net cost shall be Rs. 1,50,000/- x 4 =Rs. 6,00,000/-

SAVINGS:

An anticipated saving of close to 800tonnes of steam per month. This by present cost
of steam of Rs. 1100/- per tonne will work out to Rs. 9 lakhs per month.

PAYBACK PERIOD:

TWO weeks. Actually, not applicable as the savings comes with almost nil
investment.








ANNEXURE

STEAM CALCULATIONS:

3.5bar steam properties:

Enthalpy Density Velocity

h
f
- 584.34Kj/Kg
h
fg
- 2148.1 Kj/Kg
h
g
2732.44 Kj/Kg


liquid - 927.16 Kg/m
3

Vapour - 1.907 Kg/M
3

Specific Volume 0.524m
3
/Kg



40m/s


CASE - 1

We require 24KL of sterilized media for culture.

Approximate weight of the media 24000 Kg.
Approximate temperature of the media at start of sterilization 25
o
C
Specific heat of media 1 cal/g or 4.182Kj/Kg
o
K

Desired End temperature 121
o
C

Hence approximate total heat required: 10x10
6
KJ

Amount of steam required at 3.5bar 3660Kg ~ 15.25% of total media.

CASE 2

We require 8KL of sterilized media for culture.

Approximate heat required: 3.35x 10
6
KJ

Steam required at 3.5 bar 1225Kg ~ 15.3% of total media.