Biological Industrial waste-water treatment minimizing biomass Production and maximizing biomass Concentration

Applied Science

Biochemical engineering's grand adventure

Building on the recent revolution in molecular biology, enabling a wealth of bio-product innovations made from renewable feedstocks, the biotechnology field is in a transition phase to bring the products to the market. This requires a shift from natural sciences to engineering sciences with first conception of new, efficient large-scale bioprocess designs, followed by implementation of the most promising design in practice. Inspired by a former publication by O. Levenspiel in 1988, an outline is presented of main challenges that the field of biochemical engineering is currently facing, in a context of major global sustainability trends. The critical stage is the conceptual design phase. Issues can best be addressed and overcome by adopting an attitude where one begins with the end in mind. This applies to three principal components: 1. the bioprocess value chain, where the product specifications and downstream purification schemes should be set before defining the upstream sections, 2. the time perspective, starting in the future assuming that feedstock and product-market combinations are already in place and then going back to today, and 3. the scale of operation, where the industrial operation sets the boundaries for all labscale research and development, and not vice versa. In this way, and ideal process is defined taking constraints from anticipated manufacturing into account. For illustration, three bioprocess design examples are provided, that show how new, ideal conceptual designs can be generated. These also make clear that the engineering sciences are undergoing a revolution, where bio-based approaches replace fossil routes, and gross simplification is replaced by highly detailed computational methods. For biochemical processes, lifeline modeling frameworks are highlighted as powerful means to reconcile the competing needs for high speed and high quality in biochemical engineering, both in the design and implementation stages, thereby enabling significant growth of the bio-based economy.BT/Bioprocess EngineeringOLD BT/Cell Systems Engineerin

Method for acquiring grain-shaped growth of a microorganism in a reactor

The invention relates to a method of acquiring granular growth of a microorganism in a reactor containing a liquid medium. Surprisingly, according to the invention, aerobic microorganisms also can be induced to granular growth by maintaining specific culture conditions. During a first step an oxygen-containing gas is supplied and the reactor contents are kept in turbulence. In a second step, after a short settling period, the top part of the reactor medium is discharged.Applied Science

Process for the continuous biological production of lipids, hydrocarbons or mixtures thereof

The present invention is directed to a process for the continuous biological production of lipids, hydrocarbons, hydrocarbon like material or mixtures thereof by conversion of a suitable substrate using micro-organisms, in which process the said substrate is continuously, anaerobically fermented to produce lipids, hydrocarbons, hydrocarbon like material or mixtures thereof and fermentation gas, in the presence of, optionally supported, micro-organisms in an aqueous medium in a column type reactor, in which reactor at least part of the aqueous medium flows in upward direction, and recovering the lipids, hydrocarbon or hydrocarbon like material by separating the fermentation gas, the micro-organisms, the lipids, hydrocarbon or hydrocarbon like material from each other under conditions that coalescence of the hydrocarbon material or hydrocarbon like material is promoted.BiotechnologyApplied Science

Development of tools for quantitative intracellular metabolomics of Aspergillus niger chemostat cultures

In view of the high citric acid production capacity of Aspergillus niger, it should be well suited as a cell factory for the production of other relevant acids as succinic, fumaric, itaconic and malic. Quantitative metabolomics is an important omics tool in a synthetic biology approach to develop A. niger for the production of these acids. Such studies require well defined and tightly controlled cultivation conditions and proper rapid sampling, sample processing and analysis methods. In this study we present the development of a chemostat for homogeneous steady state cultivation of A. niger, equipped with a new dedicated rapid sampling device. A quenching method for quantitative metabolomics in A. niger based on cold methanol was evaluated using balances and optimized with the aim of avoiding metabolite leakage during sample processing. The optimization was based on measurements of the intermediates of the glycolysis, TCA and PPP pathways and amino acids, using a balance approach. Leakage was found to be absent at ?20 °C for a 40 % (v/v) methanol concentration in water. Under these conditions the average metabolite recovery was close to 100 %. When comparing A. niger and Penicillium chrysogenum metabolomes, under the same cultivation conditions, similar metabolite fingerprints were found in both fungi, except for the intracellular citrate level which is higher for A. niger.BT/BiotechnologyApplied Science

Efficient modeling of 13C-labeling distributions in microorganisms

Applied Science

Primary amide synthesis from carboxylic acids with a lipase

The invention relates to a method of preparing a reaction product such as a primary amide, by means of two reagents A and B, which reagents form a salt that impedes fast conversion. The concentrations of the reagent A and the reagent B are chosen such that they comply with formula (I) wherein [A]T represents the concentration of the first reagent A in relation to the total volume taken up by the reagents A, B, and the solvent.Applied Science