FERMENTATION PRODUCTS- CHEMICAL VERSUS MICROBIOLOGICAL SYNTHESIS

The common thing shared by both chemical synthetic industries and the microbial fermentation industries is that both are involved in the synthesis and production of chemical compounds. That is where the similarity ends.

Chemical industries produced both organic and inorganic chemicals in more varieties by carrying out the chemical reactions which utilize more energy and pressure compared to the fermentation industries. Microbial fermentation industries carry out the synthetic reactions under normal ambient temperature and pressure using microorganisms and enzymes to catalyze the changes. Their biological reactions do not require high energy or extreme conditions.

Fermentation products formed by the microorganisms are however more labile and occur in lower concentrations or in very dilute solutions. These characteristics have created problems not only in the production of the chemicals but also in the downstream isolation, concentration and purification of the fermentation products compared to the chemical industries.

It is interesting to note that most of the chemical downstream processing units for product recovery are also used in the fermentation industry downstream processing of chemical oroducts. However, in the case of downstream processing of fermentation products additional downstream processing units are added in the purification and concentration of fermentation products.