Capital cost biochemical

Currently, in the biochemical industries continuous sensing and measurement is generally limited to pH, carbon dioxide concentration and oxygen concentration. Other quantities would ideally be measured on a continuous basis but the lack of a suitable sensor prevents this. One major exception within a large pharmaceutical company is the use of a mass spectrometer to analyse fermenter vent gas continuously. The results are rapidly obtained and precise. The machine is linked to 64 fermenters and this spreads the substantial capital cost over a number of products. 

As a matter of fact, most of the processes currently developed to generate biochemicals out of biomass involve fermentation of starch originating from corn, wheat, or rice, for example. The various chemicals obtainable from theses processes and their end applications are listed in Table 10.3. A lot of these fermented biochemicals, however, are not yet economically competitive compared with their petrochemical equivalent, essentially due to the large capital investment in equipment and land needed to implement the fermentation process on an industrial scale. An additional disadvantage of this route is that it competes with feedstock needed by the food industry. More research to reduce the costs of fermentation technology is needed. 

As potential directions for the BAHLM systems development, drug separations from biochemical mixtures, fermentation, catalysis and separation with enrichment of valuable compounds (BAHLM bioreactors), desalination of wastewater, and sea water and some integrated water-soluble complexing/filtration techniques are considered. It is suggested that the proposed BAHLM techniques may successfully and effectively replace the presenting separation systems with lower capital and operational costs. 

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