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This course explores how simple mass balancing can be used to describe process performance and to investigate effects of process changes. It considers how to complete mass balances for short process sequences involving the separation of biological components, and performing preliminary estimates of the relationship between yield, contaminant removal and dilution factors for both centrifuges and membrane filters.
Course Overview
- Setting the scene
- Process Overview
- What you will learn
- Product Recovery and Loss Problem
- Set up the Process Feed Stream
- Product Recovery and Loss in a Centrifuge
- Appraisal of assumptions used in mass balances
- Appraisal of using wash stage
- Further considerations
- Product Recovery and Loss in a Microfilter
- Appraisal
What you will learn
The product recovery and loss studies are based on the principle of what goes into an operation such as a centrifuge or microfilter must come out. This is commonly called 'mass balancing'. Mass balancing helps inform us about process performance; for example, how much product has been recovered (or lost) and how much the product has been purified; that is the yield and purification factor. Firstly, you are going to explore how mass balancing of sequences of operations can be used to describe process performance. Secondly you will investigate how changes in the way operations are run can affect process performance. Two competing operations for solid liquid separation, namely centrifugation and microfiltration, will be used to illustrate the principles involved.