Plant bioprocess

Bioprocess plants are an essential part of food, fine chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Use of microorganisms to transform biological materials for production of fermented foods, cheese and chemicals has its antiquity. Bioprocesses have been developed for an enoimous range of commercial products, as listed in Table 1.1. Most of the products originate from relatively cheap raw materials. Production of industrial alcohols and organic solvents is mostly originated from cheap feed stocks. The more expensive and special bioprocesses are in the production of antibiotics, monoclonal antibodies and vaccines. Industrial enzymes and living cells such as baker s yeast and brewer s yeast are also commercial products obtained from bioprocess plants. 

Bioprocess plants using microorganisms and/or enzymes, such as fermentation plants, have many characteristics similar to those of chemical plants. ITius, a chemical engineering approach should be useful in the design and operation of... 

Most chemical, biochemical, and physical operations in chemical and bioprocess plants can be performed batchwise or continuously. 

Heat transfer (heat transmission) is an important unit operation in chemical and bioprocess plants. In general, heat is transferred by one of the three mechanisms, namely, conduction, convection, and radiation, or by their combinations. However, we need not consider radiation in bioprocess plants, which usually operate at relatively low temperatures. The heating and cooling of solids rarely become problematic in bioprocess plants. 

Heating by condensing vapors, usually by saturated steam, is a very common practice in chemical and bioprocess plants. Liquid boiling and vapor condensation also occur in distillation or evaporation equipment. 

The following steps are used to operate a bioprocess plant. 

In this section, we describe the instrumentation for monitoring the current status of bioprocess plants, focusing on the measurement of process variables as the basis of bioprocess control. 

Liquid-Flow Rate Liquid flow rate is measured when a medium is fed into a biore-actor in continuous and fed-batch operation. The flow rate of cooling water is also monitored in industrial bioprocessing plants. 

Elaboration of the fermentation technology also falls in this period, development accelerated, however, only after World War II. Outstanding results have been attained in the research and application of several other biotransformation procedures as well (e.g., in the transformation of antibiotics). Vitamin B12 production on an industrial scale was first introduced to the world in Hungary. Improvement of yeast strains and their application in the alcohol-, yeast- and wine industries became general practice in the 1960s, together with operation with up-to-date microbial methods for dairy products. Based on results attained abroad, several modern bioprocess plants started operation in the 1970s. 

Reid, D.C., 1992, Biofouling in bioprocess plant. PhD Thesis, University of Birmingham. 

Usually the material balance is the first step in process design and engineering projects. It is present in the day-to-day monitoring and supervision of chemical and bioprocessing plants. It is by far... 

Fig. 11.41 Schematic representation of the bioprocessing plant that is located at the other side of the river...

The most popular types for bioprocessing plants are the diaphragm and ball valves types. The latter are more robust but contain crevices making sterilisation more difficult. Barnsleystated a preference for diaphragm valves since they are reasonably crevice free the material EPDM (ethylene propylene diene modified) was the preferred diaphragm material. 

Leaver, G. and Stewart, I.W. (1990). Aerosol formation from containment breach of bioprocessing plant. Proceedings 4th Annual Conference Aerosol Society, Aerosols, Their Generation, Behaviour, and Applications, University of Surrey, 9-11 April. 

Few, if any, standards have been laid down for acceptable leak rates in bioprocessing plant,and it is normally up to the designer to decide on a maximum permissible value. This is often an arbitrary decision, since there... 

High temperatures and pressures, aggressive reagents and hazards associated with runaway reactions are not generally present on bioprocess plants. The most prevalent physical hazard arises from the inadvertent escape of sterilizing steam and simple precautions can effectively reduce such risks. 

Another crucial area in bioprocess plants is the validation of control systems. Instrumentation calibration must be followed by rigorous checking of control system software. Many biotechnology plants are capable of multiproduct operation and it is essential to oisure that there is no possibility for commonality in product-specific software so that the integrity of GMP for one product does not corrupt a system that has already been validated. 

---