Chapter 17 Product Recovery

Product recovery in bioprocessing plays a vital role. Sometimes, the product

recovery costs may even decide the economic viability of the process. They
vary anywhere between 20-60% of the product cost. In some extreme cases,
the costs may go up to 90%, as in the case of recombinant DNA fermentation
products.
The product recovery operations are also known as downstream processing
steps. They include all the steps we take up after the fermentation step is
completed in the bioreactor. They play a very crucial role because the
products that come out of the bioreactor may consist of the following, in
addition to the metabolic product:

Microorganisms
Whole cells
Cell debris/fragments
Soluble and insoluble medium products
Pellets of aggregated proteins
Undissolved nutrient components, etc.

In view of the large number of unnecessary products being present in the

fermented broth, downstream processing steps are important. They may be
broadly classified into

Initial isolation
Product recovery
Purification and concentration

The type of the downstream processing step to be adopted for a particular

fermentation process depends upon the product, its value and the use for
which it is meant. A very costly product to be used for medicinal purposes in
small quantities will be purified and concentrated using very sophisticated
downstream processing steps; whereas those meant for industrial use in bulk
quantities, may be recovered with some of the initial isolation steps. If the
solids are present in suspension, they will be separated by simple
sedimentation or filtration or centrifugation. It also depends upon the
location of the product in the presence of cells, viz. extracellular or
intracellular, i.e. whether the product is independently existing of the cells or
the product is trapped inside the cells. In the latter case, we may have to go
for some of the steps for disrupting the cells.
The cell disruption techniques may be classified as

Physical methods
Chemical methods

Various unit operations involved in product isolation and purification

are highlighted as Step 6 in Fig. 1.1 the specific choice of the recovery
of the product may be summarized as follows (Stanbury and Whitaker,
1993):
The location of the product, viz. intracellular or extracellular, and the
heat labile nature of the product
The quantity of the product in the fermentation broth, i.e. whether it is
available in a concentrated form or in a very dilute form
The cost of the product
The end use of the product
The minimal acceptable standards of the product
The impurities present in the fermentation product, and their nature of
interference with the product recovery steps.

FILTRATION
Filtration is a physical method of separation of suspended particles of
any size from the liquid medium. Here, the only criterion is that the particle
size should be larger than the molecules size of the liquid, which is always
true. It is a very effective and convenient method of separating the
suspended solids from the slurries. In this method of separation, either solids
or the liquid or both could be the desired products.
The liquid along with the suspended solids will be transferred on to a
filter medium. The filter medium will retain all the particles which are bigger
than the size of its aperture, and will pass on all the liquid medium along
with some of the very fine suspended solid particles. All the material
remaining on the filter medium is known as residue or filter cake, and all
the material passing through (the filter medium) is known as filtrate (Fig.
17.). The filter medium, usually known as filter cloth, is kept on a perforated
screen to provide mechanical support to the filter aid. As the filtration
process continues, more and more solids build up in the filter cake and offer
more resistance for the flow of the fluids. But as the filter cake builds up, the
filtration efficiency will also improve, that is to say that still finer particles can
be retained in the residue and the filtrate can be more clear of the solids.
Thus, filtration efficiency will improve, but the filtration rate will reduce.