Influence of yeast size on the kinetics of cell disruption in an ultrasonic homogenizer

Abstract

The results of studies on the disintegration kinetics of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae are presented. The process was carried out in a 500 W ultrasonic homogenizer equipped with a spherical working chamber with a volume of 100 cm 3. The concentration of the suspension of microorganisms was 0.05 g d.m./cm 3. The continuous phase was water solution containing 0.15 M NaCl and 4 mM K 2HPO 4. The kinetics of cell disruption were studied by the direct method. The theory of random transformation of dispersed matter was used to analyze the process. There was significant variation in the size of yeast cells. The range of changes in the values of parameters describing the size of microorganisms was divided into size classes. The kinetics of cell disruption in individual classes was described by a first-order linear differential equation. During the implosion of cavitation bubbles, the transformation volume of individual microorganisms is generated. It has been shown that as the volume of cells in subsequent size classes increases, their transformation volumes do not increase significantly. The safe volume for cells remains unchanged. As the size of the microorganisms increased, there was no increase in the constant rate of cell disruption.