Guide to product recovery

There is sufficient material about downstream processing, the term that bioengineers apply to product recovery, to supplement four or five weeks of lecture. A first course in biochemical engineering should cover the high spots and leave the rest for the next courses. It is suggested that teachers provide a list of pages for the course and alert their students about where to stop. Students who more depth can follow the links within each topic.

Links to overview pages for early steps in recovery

There will not be enough time this semester to delve into much detail. Please use the times shown as a guide to relative importance. If the topic has been covered in the lectures, just use the web pages for review.

Equipment and Chemicals. No more than 5 minutes on this.

Direct recovery from the fermentation broth

  • Distillation (ethanol). 5 minutes.
  • Adding solvents. 3 minutes.

    • Getting the product out of the cells

  • Cell Disruption 5 minutes

    • Removing the cells and debris

  • Filtration. Lots of good stuff, but the theory and practice are ordinary chemical engineering. 10 minutes should be enough.
  • Sedimentation. Very important for environmental engineers, but not for biochemical engineers. 4 minutes.   
    Flotation. 2 minutes.

    • Major ways to get rid of most of the water

  • Solvent Extraction. Just glance at the theory. 5 minutes for the rest.
  • Adsorption. Do enough to review lecture.
  • Ion Exchange.  Do enough to review lecture.