Premium
Large‐Scale Bioprocessing of Solids
Author(s) -
Andrews Graham
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
biotechnology progress
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.572
H-Index - 129
eISSN - 1520-6033
pISSN - 8756-7938
DOI - 10.1021/bp00003a012
Subject(s) - bioreactor , bioprocess , slurry , bioremediation , pulp and paper industry , environmental science , chemistry , waste management , heap (data structure) , environmental engineering , chemical engineering , contamination , mathematics , biology , engineering , ecology , organic chemistry , algorithm
The bioremediation of contaminated soils, bacterial leaching of metals from ores, biode‐sulfurization of coal, and the direct fermentation of biomass to ethanol are all relatively new processes in which the microbial substrate is a solid. They involve high volume low‐value products, so if they are to be economically viable, the bioreactor must be as small and cheap as possible. Bioreactor design for all these processes has much in common, but it has not been addressed in a systematic way. This paper examines the effect of particle size on reactor type (heap versus slurry), problems of gas transfer into heaps and concentrated slurries, and the desirability of longitudinal mixing.