TROUBLE SHOOTING IN A FERMENTATION PLANT

Complete or varying degrees of inhibition of product formation in the fermenters. 

Possibly the product is produced, but contaminating products cannot be separated fi om the final product. 

The fermentation broth cannot be filtered or otherwise processed due to physical broth characteristics. 

A fermentation department attempts to operate its culture lab, seed and main fermenters at 100% aseptic conditions. Good performance is when contamination occurs in 1 % or less of the batches. Naturally, any occurrence of such problems raises the cost of production, and the worst situation is when production is brought to a stop due to contamination. First, it is necessary to have standard operating procedures which are rigidly followed. Second, it is important to have well-trained operators who report back all problems, errors and irregularities, and third, the supervisors and engineer must listen to the operators, and react or explain the information, as the case may be, to close the communication loop and motivate the operators. 

The basic sources of contamination in a fermentation department usually fall into the following categories  

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