Biological Separations

Full course description

This course builds on knowledge introduced in the course Plants and Microbes, further explored in Plant Biology Skills, and aims at giving an overview of the different techniques available for the separation, recovery and purification of specific biosynthetic products from natural or recombinant sources, such as plant biomass or microbial cultures. The typical five stages in downstream processing are studied: 1. Solid- liquid separation (flotation, flocculation, filtration, centrifugation, distillation); 2. Release of intracellular products (cell disruption by physical, chemical, enzymatic methods or combinations thereof); 3. Concentration (dialysis, evaporation, liquid-liquid extraction, filtration, precipitation, adsorption); 4. Purification (chromatography), and; 5. Formulation (crystallization, drying, use of stabilising agents and additives, sterilization). In addition, the principles of biomass upgrading and biorefinery technologies are also studied. Particular attention is given to the concepts of recovery, recycling and upgrading of waste materials, in which new trends as well as commercially viable examples are discussed.