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Stage III: Downstream processing which involves separation of cells from the
fermentation broth, purification and concentration of desired product and waste
disposal or recycle.
Downstream processing, the various stages that follow the fermentation process,
involves suitable techniques and methods for recovery, purification, and
characterization of the desired fermentation product. A vast array of methods for
downstream processing, such as centrifugation, filtration, and chromatography, may
be applied. These methods vary according to the chemical and physical nature, as
well as the desired grade, of the final product.
Depending on the circumstance, the term fermentation can have three meanings. In
a physiological sense, fermentation refers to a process that produces energy by
breaking down of energy-rich compounds under anaerobic conditions. This is the
basis of food fermentation, which is commonly used in the food industry in order to
produce diverse food products and also as a food preservation method. In a
biotechnological context though, this term is used in a much broader sense. There,
fermentation means a process in which microorganisms that are cultured on a largescale under aerobic or anaerobic conditions, convert a substrate into a product
which is useful to man.
Any industrial fermentation operation can be broken down into three main stages,
viz, upstream processing, the fermentation process and downstream processing.
A medium which is used for a large scale fermentation, in order to ensure the
sustainability of the operation, should have the following characteristics;
1. It should be cheap and easily available
2. It should maximise the growth of the microorganism, productivity and the rate of
formation of the desired product
3. It should minimise the formation of undesired products
The fermentation process can also be divided into three basic systems, namely
batch, continuous or fed-batch, depending on the feeding strategy of the culture
and the medium into the fermenter. Each of these processes has their own
advantages and disadvantages. In a batch operation, the medium and the culture
are initially fed into the vessel and it is then closed. After that, no components are
added apart from oxygen (in an aerobic process) and acid or alkali for the pH
adjustment. The fermentation is allowed to run for a predetermined period of time
and the product is harvested at the end. In a continuous process, fresh medium is
continuously added and the products, along with the culture is removed at the same
rate, thus maintaining constant concentrations of nutrients and cells are maintained
throughout the process. A fed-batch system is a combination of these two systems
where additional nutrients are added to the fermenter as the fermentation is in
progress. This extends the time of operation but the products are harvested at the
end of the production cycle as in a batch fermenter.
The process can also be categorised as solid state fermentation (SSF) or submerged
fermentation (SmF), depending on the amount of free water in the medium. In a
solid state fermentation, the medium contains no free flowing water. The organisms
are grown in a solid substrate which is moistened. This is used in certain industrial
process such as koji fermentation from soybeans, production of amylase and
protease by Aspergillus oryzae on roasted soybeans and wheat, bioremediation,
detoxification of agro-industrial wastes, etc. Submerged fermentation is in which
microorganisms grow submerged in a liquid medium where free water is abundant.
This is the method of choice for many industrial operations over SSF although SSF is
also rapidly gaining interest in the present.
Downstream Processing includes the recovery of the products in a pure state and
the effluent treatment. Product recovery is carried out through a series of
operations including cell separation by settling, centrifugation or filtration; product
recovery by disruption of cells (if the product is produced intracellularly); extraction
and purification of the product. Finally, the effluents are treated by chemical,
physical or biological methods.
Fermentation Products
Commercially important products of fermentation can be described in five major
groups as follows.
1. Biomass (Bakers yeast, SCP, Starter cultures, animal feed, etc.)
2. Primary metabolites (amino acids, organic acids, vitamins, polysaccharides,
ethanol, etc.) and secondary metabolites (antibiotics, etc.)
3. Bioconvertion or biotransformation products (steroid biotransformation, L-sorbitol
etc.)
Sources
1. Food Biotechnology (2nd edition) edited by Kalidas Shetty, Gopinadhan Paliyath,
Anthony Pometto and Robert E. Levin