Design and Optimization of Recovery and Purification Processes for Bio-based Materials

Processing of food and bio-based products presents unique challenges as the target (product) molecules are typically present in low concentrations in a complex fermentation broth or plant-based feed stock. These product molecules often have limited stability due to sensitive to heat, shear, and oxidation. They need to be recovered, purified, and concentrated from a water based process stream, before they are formulated into a high purity dry product form. This means that food and biotech operations are very separation intensive (30-70% of operating cost) and tend to have a large water footprint with large quantities of waste water produced per kg of product.

Mechanical Separation Technologies such as centrifugation, and filtration are often more energy efficient compared to thermal separation processes, and cause fewer issues with product stability due to milder processing conditions. Separation equipment is constantly evolving as new separation concepts are invented, existing designs are improved, and capital cost is coming down. This opens up new applications in food and biotech that were previously considered not feasible.

Selecting the right separation method and using state-of-the-art technologies will be critical for the long term competitiveness and sustainability of food and biotech businesses.

In this talk I will give an overview of the particular separation challenges in the biotech and food industry, and discuss methodologies for equipment selection, process scale-up and optimization.