Downstream Processing

Betul Gurunlu, PhD

Assistant Professor
Uskudar University,
Bioengineering Department
General Steps in Downstream
Purification
 Downstream processing
• The various stages of processing that
occur after the completion of the
fermentation or bioconversion stage,
including separation, purification, and
packaging of the product.
 Stages in Downstream
Processing
 Removal of Insolubles
 Product Isolation
 Product Purification
 Product Polishing
 A few product recovery methods may be
considered to combine two or more
stages.
For example, expanded bed adsorption
accomplishes removal of insolubles and product
isolation in a single step. Affinity chromatography
often isolates and purifies in a single step.
 Removal of Insolubles
• Separation of cells, cell debris or other particulate
matter
• Typical operations to achieve this:
1) Filtration
2) Centrifugation
3) Sedimentation
4) Flocculation a process where a solute comes out
of solution in the form of floc or flakes.
5) Gravity settling
 Filtration

• A mechanical operation used for the

separation of solids from fluids (liquids or
gases) by interposing a medium to porous
membrane through which the fluid can pass,
but the solids in the fluid are retained.
 Filtration
• The solid particles deposited on the filter form
a layer, which is known as filter cake.
• All the solid particles from the feed are
stopped by the cake ,and the cake grows at
the rate at which particles are bought to
its surface.
• All of the fluid goes through the cake and filter
medium.
 Continuous Rotary filter

Liquid filtrate

Filter
Hollow spokes

Cell mass

Perforat
e d Knife
drum
 Continuous Rotary Vacuum filter
• It is one of the most commonly used type of
filter in fermentation.
• The drum is pre coated prior to filtration.
• A small agent of coagulating is added to the
broth before it is pumped into the filter.
• The drum rotates under vacuum and a thin
layer of cells sticks to the drum.
• The thickness of the layer increases in the
section designed for forming the cake.
Points to be considered while selecting
the filter medium:
• Ability to build the solid.
• Minimum resistance to flow the filtrate.
• Resistance to chemical attack.
• Minimum cost.
• Long life
ROTARY DRUM FILTER APPLICATION
Pressure drum filter can be used for all continuous drum filtration or
batch production suspension and full sealing design especially suitable
for filtering of solvents and separation of products which must be done
in full sealing system, such as toxic products or products have safety
requirement for plant or environment.

1.Dye, pigment
2.Plastic
3.Antibiotic
4.Pesticide, fine chemical
5.Food
 Centrifugation

• Centrifugation is used to separate particles of 100 – 0.1

micrometer from liquid by gravitational forces.
• It depends on particles size,density difference between
the cells and the broth and broth viscosity.
• Use of the centrifugal force for the separation of
mixtures
• More-dense components migrate away from the axis of
the centrifuge
• Less-dense components migrate towards the axis.
• Types of centrifuges used are Tubular bowl
centrifuge,multichamber centrifuge,disc bowl
centrifuge etc.
 Sedimentation
• It is apllicable only for large particles greater
than 100 micrometer flocs.
• It is a slow process and takes ~3 hours.
• It is used in process like activated sludge
effluent treatment.
• It’s a free settling process depends only on
gravity.
• Particles settling is a high particle density
suspension(hindered settling).
 Flocculation
• Process where a solute comes out of solution in
the form of flocs or flakes.
• Particles finer than 0.1 µm in water remain
continuously in motion due to electrostatic
charge which causes them to repel each other
• Once their electrostatic charge is neutralized (use
of coagulant) the finer particles start to collide
and combine together .
• These larger and heavier particles are called
flocs.
 Product Isolation
• Removal of those components whose properties
vary markedly from that of the desired product.
• Water is the chief impurity
a) Isolation steps are designed to remove it
(i.e.dialysis)
b) Reducing the volume
c) Concentrating the product.
d) Liquid –liquid extraction, adsorption,
ultrafiltration, and precipitation are some of the
unit operations involved.
 Liquid -Liquid extraction
• It is a separation process that takes the advantage of
the relative solubilities of solute in immiscible solvents.
• Solute is dissolved more readily and becomes more
concentrated in the solvent in which it has a higher
solubility.
• A partial separation occurs when a number of solutes
have different relative solubilities in the two solvents
used.
• Solvent should be non toxic, selective, inexpensive and
immiscible with broth and should have a high
distribution coefficent for the product.
 Adsorption
• is a surface phenomenon
• It is the binding of molecules to the surface and
different from absorption.
• The binding to the surface is weak and
reversible.
• Compounds containing chromogenic group are
usually strongly adsorbed on activated carbon.
• Common adsorbent used are activated
carbon,silica gel,alumina becoz they present
enormous surface areas per unit weight.
 Ultrafiltration

UF is basically a pressure-driven separation

process.
The operating pressure is usually between 0.1
and 1 MPa.
 Ultrafiltration
• UF is governed by a screening principle and
dependent on particle size.
• UF membranes have a pore size between 1
nm and 100 nm (10 and 2000 Å), thus
allowing retention of compounds with a
molecular weight of 300 to 500 000 Dalton.
• Typically, the process is suitable for retaining
biomolecules, bacteria, viruses, polymers,
colloidal particles and sugar molecules.
Ultrafiltration
 Precipitation
• Formation of a solid in a solution during a
chemical reaction.
• Solid formed is called the precipitate and the
liquid remaining above the solid is called the
supernate.
 Precipitation
• Salts such as ammonium & sodium sulphate
are used for proteins to precipitate.
• Organic solvents methanol used to precipitate
dextrans.
• Chilled ethanol and acetone used for protein
precipitation.
• Non ionic polymer such as polyethylene glycol
used in precipitation.
 Product Purification
• Done to separate those contaminants that
resemble the product very closely in physical and
chemical properties.
• Expensive to carry out
• Require sensitive and sophisticated equipment
• Significant fraction of the entire downstream
processing expenditure.
• Examples of operations include affinity, size
exclusion, reversed phase
chromatography,crystallization and fractional
precipitation.
 Chromatography
• Separation of mixtures
• Passing a mixture dissolved in a "mobile
phase" through a stationary phase, which
separates the analyte to be measured from
other molecules in the mixture and allows it
to be isolated.
 Ion Exchange Chromatography
• Used charged stationary
phase to separate
charged compounds
• Resin that carries
charged functional
groups which interact
with oppositely charged
groups of
thecompound to be
retained.
• FPLC
 Definition: Ion
• Ion is an atom or molecule which has lost or
gained one or more valence electrons, giving it a
positive or negative electrical charge.
• Anions are negatively charged ions, formed when
an atom gains electrons in a reaction. Anions are
negatively charged because there are more
electrons associated with them than there are
protons in their nuclei.
• Cations are positively charged ions, formed
when an atom loses electrons in a reaction,
forming an 'electron hole'.
 Affinity chromatography
• Affinity chromatography separates the protein of
interest on the basis of a reversible interaction
between it and its antibody coupled to a
chromatography bead (here labeled antigen) .
• With high selectivity, high resolution, and high
capacity for the protein of interest, purification
levels in the order of several thousand-fold are
achievable.
• The protein of interest is collected in a purified,
concentrated form. Biological interactions
between the antigen and the protein of interest
can result from electrostatic interactions, van der
Waals' forces and/or hydrogen bonding. To elute
the protein of interest from the affinity beads, the
interaction can be reversed by changing the pH or
ionic strength.
• The concentrating effect enables large volumes to
be processed. The protein of interest can be
purified from high levels of contaminating
substances.
• Making antibodies to the protein of interest is
expensive, so affinity chromatography is the least
economical choice for production
chromatography.
 Size exclusion chromatography
• Gel permeation/filtration
• chromatography (GPC)
• Separates molecules
• according to their size
• Low resolution"polishing"
• Tertiary/Quaternary structure(native)
 Reversed phase chromatography
Reversed-phase chromatography is an elution
procedure used
in liquid
chromatography in
which the mobile
phase is significantly
more polar than the
stationary phase.
 Definitions: Polarity
• The dipole-dipole intermolecular forces
between the slightly positively-charged end of
one molecule to the negative end of another
or the same molecule.
• Molecular polarity is dependent on the
difference in electronegativity between atoms
in a compound and the asymmetry of the
compound's structure.
 Liquid Chromatography
• Mobile phase is a liquid.
• Carried out either in a column or a plane.
• HPLC
• In the HPLC technique, the sample is forced
through a column that is packed with
irregularly or spherically shaped particles or a
porous monolithic layer (stationary phase) by
a liquid (mobile phase) at high pressure.
HPLC Configuration
 Crystallization
• process of formation of solid crystals
precipitating from a solution, melt or more
rarely deposited directly from a gas.

• chemical solid-liquid separation technique, in

which mass transfer of a solute from the liquid
solution to a pure solid crystalline phase
occurs.
 Product Polishing
• End with packaging of the product in a form that is
• stable, easily transportable and convenient.
• Crystallization
• Desiccation
• Lyophilization
• Spray drying
• May include:
• Sterilization of the product
• Remove or deactivate trace contaminants which might
compromise product safety viruses or depyrogenation
 lyophilization
• freezing the material

• reducing the surrounding pressure and adding

enough heat to allow the frozen water in the
material to sublime directly from the solid
phase to gas.
 Current Research
A Study on Downstream Processing for the production of Pullulan by
Aureobasidium pullulans-SB-01 from the Fermentation broth
• Pullulan made up of linear α-D-glucan maltotriose & maltotetrose rinterconnected
by α (1→6) & α (1→4) linkages
• is a water-soluble homopolysaccharide produced extracellularly by Aureobasidium
pullulans.
• It is necessary to harvest cells, remove the melanin pigments co-produced during
its fermentation followed by its precipitation, concentration and drying.
• Centrifugation of fermentation broth at 8,000 rpm for 20 min gave cell pellets that
were discarded & a greenish black supernatant containing melanin pigment .
• It was then subjected to the heat treatment at 80°C for 30 min in order to remove
the protein (mainly Pullulanase) in the fermentation broth.
• The supernatant was demelanized by with hydrogen peroxide &activated charcoal,
solvent-solvent blends, or by solvent-salt combinations in which hydrogen
peroxide treatment shows better result for the removal of melanin pigments.
• For the precipitation of the exopolysachride the cold Isopropanol was used
followed by its drying process at 60°C for 40 min. This methodology produced high
purity pullulan that was comparable in colour and texture to the commercial
samples which was characterized by the HPLC and FT-IR analysis.
 Reference
• Principles of Fermentation Technology by Peter Stanbury,Allan
Whiteaker,Stephen Hall,2nd Edition,Chapter 10,Pages : 277-308.
• Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology By Ghasem
Najafpour,1st edition 2007, Chapter 7 ,Pages: 170-189.
• http://www.microbelibrary.org/library/resources/3138-
fermentation-process-in-the-stirred-tank-fermenter
• Current Research :
http://www.isca.in/rjrs/archive/special_issue2012/4.ISCA-ISC-2012-
03BS-46.pdf
• Research Journal of Recent Sciences Vol. 2(ISC-2012), 16-19 (2013)
by Bishwambhar Mishra and Suneetha Vuppu
• Available online at: www.isca.in Received 18th October 2012,
revised21st January 2013, accepted23rd January 2013.
Thank - You