Optimization of membrane processes in white biotechnology

Abstract

White biotechnology for the production of fine chemicals will substitute some chemistry based on petrol and gas in the near future. A standard process for this technology is fermentation. The downstream treatment with membranes is an essential and cost-intensive part of the processing. For downstream processing plate and frame systems are very common due to their robustness and their open channel design. Another essential part of the process is the optimization of membrane fouling. A process for a protease production was used as a reference. The antifoam agent that was used had a strong fouling tendency. It could be shown that a high priced polyamide-imide/polyethersufone membrane could be substituted with a standard, lower priced polyethersufone membrane by optimizing the temperature and antifoam agents.