BIO-CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

What is Chemical Engineering ?

What is Biochemical Engineering  The application of chemical engineering principles to conceive, design, develop, operate, or utilize processes and products based on biological and biochemical phenomena; this field is included in a wide range of industries, such as health care, pharmaceutical, agriculture, food, enzymes, chemicals, waste treatment, and energy.  It is the branch of chemical engineering which deals with the design and construction of unit processes that involve biological organisms and molecules.

History of Biochemical Engineering  In the discipline's initial stages, biochemical engineers were chiefly concerned with optimizing the growth of microorganisms under aerobic conditions at scales of up to thousands of liters.  While the scope of the discipline has expanded, this focus remains. Often the aim is the development of an economical process to maximize biomass production (and hence a particular chemical, biochemical, or protein), taking into consideration raw-material and other operating costs.

 The elemental constituents of biomass (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, and to a lesser extent phosphorus, sulfur, mineral salts, and trace amounts of certain metals) are added to the biological reactor (often called a fermentor) and consumed by the bacteria as they reproduce and carry out metabolic processes. Sufficient amounts of oxygen (usually supplied as sterile air) are added to the fermentor in such a way as to promote its availability to the growing culture.

APPLICATIONS  Biotechnology  Pharmaceutical Engineering  Genetic Engineering  Biomedical Engineering  Waste Water Treatment

Challenges of Biochemical Engineer

Fundamentals of Biochemical Engineering  Microbiology  Biochemistry  Cell Growth Kinetics  Bioreactor Design  Applications Of Bioreactors In Chemical Engineering

Microbiology  Microbiology is the study of microorganisms, which are unicellular or cell-cluster microscopic organisms.  Micoorganism A microorganism or microbe is an organism that is so small that it is microscopic (invisible to the naked eye). VirusesBacteria Algae Fungi Protozoa

CLASSIFICATION OF MICROBES Kingdom protist BacteriaBlue-Green Algae FungiAlgaeProtozoa MoldsYeasts Eucaryotes Procaryotes

Procarytoic Cell Characteristics No nuclear membrane (genetic material dispersed throughout cytoplasm) No membrane-bound organelles Simple internal structure Most primitive type of cell (appeared about four billion years ago)

Procarytoic Cell Structure  Plasama Membrane: which serves as a diffusion barrier between the cell and its environment. All living cells have plasma membranes.  Cell Wall: which is very different from the plasma membrane. One of the primary functions of the cell wall is physical support. Some kinds of bacterial cell walls also have other functions. Prokaryotic cell walls are composed at least partially of peptidoglycan, which is a kind of hybrid between polysaccharide and protein.  Nucleoid: which is an essentially imaginary "structure." This is the central region of the cell, where the DNA is largely located.  Naked DNA  Ribosomes: The function of a ribosome is to make protein, following instructions sent from the DNA's genes.  Cytoplasm: fluid substance that fills the interior of the cell. Cytoplasm is often described as a "rich, organic soup. "