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MEE317-BIOCHEMICAL ENGINEERING
UNIT-II
LECTURE 3

Dr.A.Babu Ponnusami
Associate Professor
SCALE
 Fermentation
Fermentation can be carried out as:
1. Batch
2. Continuous
3. Fed-batch processes
-Mode of operation is to a large extent dictated by
the type of product being produced.
Fermenters
Fermentation Process
 Fermentation Technology
-> Fermentation: from latin -> fervere -> to boil (describing
the anaerobic process of yeast producing CO2 on fruit
extracts)
-> Nowadays: more broad meaning!!!!
The five major groups of commercially important
fermentations:
->Process that produces microbial cells (Biomass) as a product
->Process that produces microbial enzymes as a product
->Process that produces microbial metabolites (primary or
secondary) as a product
->Process that produces recombinant products (enzymes or
metabolite) as a product
->Process that modifies a compound that is added to the
fermentation transformation process
Growth: basic concepts

Precursors

Anabolism = biosynthesis
Catabolism =
reactions to recover energy
(often ATP)
Major functions of a fermentor

1) Provide operation free from contamination;

2) Maintain a specific temperature;
3) Provide adequate mixing and aeration;
4) Control the pH of the culture;
5) Allow monitoring and/or control of dissolved oxygen;
6) Allow feeding of nutrient solutions and reagents;
7) Provide access points for inoculation and sampling;
8) Minimize liquid loss from the vessel;
9) Facilitate the growth of a wide range of organisms.
Microbial Growth Kinetics
Fermentation can be carried out as:
1. Batch
2. Continuous
3. Fed-batch processes
Mode of operation is to a large extent dictated by
the type of product being produced.
Biotechnological processes of growing
microorganisms in a bioreactor
Microbial Growth Kinetics
The simplest model is the unstructured, distributed model which is
based on the following two assumptions:
1. Cells can be represented by a single component, such as cell
mass, cell number, or the concentration of protein, DNA, or RNA.
2. The population of cellular mass is distributed uniformly
throughout the culture.
The cell suspension can be regarded as a homogeneous
solution.
The heterogeneous nature of cells can be ignored.
The cell concentration can be expressed as dry weight per
unit volume.
 Cells Growth in Batch and Continuous
Culture
-Continuous culture: Fresh nutrient medium is continually
supplied to a well-stirred culture and products and cells are
simultaneously withdrawn.
-At steady state, concentrations of cells, products and
substrates are constant.

-In batch culture: The culture environment changes

continually.
-Growth, product formation and substrate utilization
terminate after a certain time interval.
 Batch and Continuous Cultures
Batch culture:
This type of culture requires enough nutrient to
maintain the growth.

(a) Acceleration phase, (b) Retardation phase and

(c) Declining phase.
 Material balance for a batch
cultivation
-Rate of accumulation of
product equals to the rate of
formation of the product due to
chemical reaction

where - c is the amount of the component

- r is the reaction rate.
VR -total volume of the culture in the reactor.
 Continuous culture
Similar to the batch cultivation, the
air is pumped into the culture
vessel through a sterile Filter.
Bubbling of air provides:
1. Supplying air for the growth of
aerobic culture
2. Circulate and agitate the culture
3. Pressurise the head space of the
culture vessel to provide a force
during the removal of the media
and cells.
 Material balance for a continuous
cultivation

In order to maintain the volume within the vessel;

thus,
The rate of flow of medium into a system of continuous
culture is known as the dilution rate.
 Monod growth kinetics
Monod in 1942 by linking the specific growth rate and
the concentration of the nutrient used by the cells.
The model is similar to that of the Langmuir isotherm and
the famous Michaelis-Menten model of enzyme-
catalysed reactions. It is given by;

where max is the maximum growth rate when there is

enough substrate supplied to the cell and the value exceeds
the limiting substrate concentration, Ks
 The model described by Monod requires the yield
factor, YX/S which is based on the stoichiometric
parameters.
Thus, the substrate balance is now can be written as;