PRACTICAL SYLLABUS FOR FERMENTATION TECHNOLOGY COURSE AT UNIVERSITY MALAYA

Throughout my tenure teaching Fermentation Technology to Microbiology and Biotechnology students at the University Malaya I have always stressed the importance of 'hands - on' practicals to the various students taking the course. For fermentation practicals each group of six students are assigned one unit of laboratory scale fermentor of 2 litres capacity throughout their course

Students taking on the course will cover the following practicals before that are deemed to have completed the fermentation technology course practicals. These practicals dominate many hours of continuous work over days and nights and even holidays. Students who do not complete each practical to the expectation of the lecturer will have to repeat the experiments until the practicals are properly executed

PRACTICALS
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ANATOMY OF FERMENTOR (3 hrs)
Anatomy of fermentor whereby the students are required to dismantle and identify the various components of the fermentor and study the various systems making up the fermentor

CLEANING OF FERMENTOR (2 hrs)
Students are required to learn the importance of cleaning the fermentor properly and to carry out COP cleaning

ASSEMBLING AND FINAL PRESTERILIZATION CHECK OF FERMENTOR ( 1 hr)
Students are required to assemble the fermentor and to check that everything is in order prior to autoclaving or sterilization of fermentor

ANATOMY AND CALIBRATION OF FERMENTOR ELECTRODES ( 3 hrs )
Students also learn the anatomy and function of the various standard electrodes in the fermentor such as ph, Dissolved oxygen, foam probe, temperature probe. The students will learn the correct methods of calibrating the ph and DO probes

FERMENTOR FILTERS ( 3 hrs)
Students built their own cartridge filters using glass wool

RHEOLOGICAL STUDIES OF FERMENTATION BROTH ( 3 hrs)
Students carry out studies on rheology of the fermentation broth,
Students will carry out simple experiments to monitor change in viscosity of the fermentation broth

MIXINGS OF FERMENTATION BROTH ( 3 hrs)
Types of primary, secondary and tertiary mixings using dyes as tracers. Newtonian and Non Newtonian broth will be used for comparative studies

SETTING UP FERMENTATION CONSOLE ( 3 hrs)
Students will learn how to set up the fermentation console

POST STERILIZATION PROCEDURES ( 3 hrs)
Students learn how to carry out post sterilization procedures

WATER LOSS STUDIES IN STERILIZATION STUDIES ( 3 hrs)
Students carry out water loss studies from fermentor due to sterilizations

BLANK FERMENTATION RUNS ( 5 days)
Students learn to carry out blank runs to test the integrity of the fermentors

ASEPTIC TECHNIQUES IN INOCULATION OF FERMENTORS ( 3 hrs)
Students learn aseptic methods of inoculating the fermentor

ASEPTIC SAMPLINGS FROM FERMENTORS ( 3 hrs)
Students learn how to carry out aseptic samplings from the fermentor

TECHNIQUES TO DETERMINE MICROBIAL CONTAMINATIONS OF FERMENTATIONS ( Continuous assessments)
Students carry out various tests for detecting microbial contaminations

MICROBIAL SCREENING AND ISOLATIONS ( 1 week)
Students carry out microbial isolation and screening studies

MICROBIAL GROWTH CURVE STUDIES( 1 week)
Students carry out growth curve studies at different temperature and ph

AMPLIFICATION OF CELL CULTURES ( 1 week)
Students carry out microbial cell culture amplification

MONITORING OF FERMENTATION PROCESS ( 5 days)
Students carry out complete fermentation monitoring experiments using various parameters such as substrate, ph, biomass products etc using various chemical, instrumental techniques

OTR AND OUR IN FERMENTATION ( 3 hrs)
Students carry out OUR and OTR studies using the fermentors

DOWNSTREAM PROCESSING OF FERMENTATION PRODUCTS
Students carry out some down stream processing equipments

TROUBLE SHOOTING AND DIAGNOSTICS ( Continuous clinical observations)
Trouble shooting and diagnostics of the fermentor and fermentation process are continually carried out through out the whole fermentation practicals as part of their fermentation pathology exercise. Rapid physical, chemical, biochemical and microbiological techniques will be exposed

FINAL FERMENTATION PROJECT ( 2 weeks)
Where after learning all the above, the students will carry out detailed fermentation study of their choice incorporating all the lessons learned

It is sad to note ever since my retirement from the university those tight and demanding practicals might not be executed as I would like the students to do