BEN 505

ADVANCED
FERMENTATION
TECHNOLOGIES
Asst. Prof. Dr. F. Pınar Gördesli
Duatepe
2021-2022
Fall
 Class Administration
• Instructor : Asst. Prof. Dr. F. Pınar Gördesli Duatepe
• Office & Office Hour : A211 & Tuesday 13:30-14:30 (online)
• Phone: +902324889824
• E-mail : pinar.gordesli@ieu.edu.tr
• Website: https://people.ieu.edu.tr/tr/fatmapinargordesliduatepe
• Lectures once a week; Tue 18:30-21:00 (75% of the lectures will be held online, 25 % of the lectures will be
held face-to-face)
• Course length: Each course session, in online classes, is 30-40 minutes, and 40 minutes in face-to-face classes
• Course materials: Course materials will be made available to students via the Blackboard Learning
Management System.

• 70% attendance is mandatory in both face-to-face and online classes. In face-to-face classes, attendance is
required to be taken by wet signature. Each student is required to sign the attendance paper with their own
pen.
 Textbooks
M. L. Shuler and F. Kargı, "Bioprocess Engineering Basic Concepts",
2nd Edition, Prentice Hall, USA, 2002. ISBN: 978-0130819086

Doran, P., “Bioprocess Engineering Principles”, 2nd Edition, Academic Press,

USA, 2012. ISBN: 978-0122208515
Course Objectives
The purpose of this course is to provide
students with the necessary fundamental
knowledge related to the scientific principles
of fermentation, the production methods of
important industrial fermentation products,
parameters affecting production quality and
skills of solving problems.

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Learning Outcomes
The students who succeeded in this course will be able to;
• Comprehend the fundamental principles of fermentation technologies.
• Explain the importance of microorganisms for fermentation technologies.
• Identify various bioprocess techniques and operational parameters.
• Explain the production of various industrial fermented food products.
• Solve engineering problems related to industrial productions individually
or by working in a team.

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Topics that will be covered
1. Introduction to fermentation technology
2. Microorganisms and their growth media components
3. Microbial respiration and metabolism
4. Microbial growth and batch cultivations
5. Continuous cultivations
6. Fed-batch cultivations
7. Midterm exam
8. Immobilized cell systems
9. Operating Considerations for Bioreactors
10.Production of various industrial fermentation products and their metabolic pathways (mixed cultures)
11.Production of various fermentation products and their metabolic pathways (alcohol fermentation)
12.Production of various fermentation products and their metabolic pathways (syngas fermentation)
13.Project presentation
14.Project presentation
 EVALUATION SYSTEM
Semester Activities Weigthing (%)

Homework/Assignment 20
(1 HW)

Midterm (face-to-face) 20

Presentation/Jury 20
(4 presentations: 3 online, 1 face-to-
face)
Final (face-to-face) 40

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 Grading
Assignment Presentation
20% 20% SCORE GRADE COEFFICIENT ECTS Grade

90-100 AA 4.0 A

85-89 BA 3.5 B*

80-84 BB 3.0 B*

75-79 CB 2.5 C*
Midterm Final
20% 40% 70-74 CC 2.0 C*

65-69 DC 1.5 D

60-64 DD 1.0 E

50-59 FD 0.5 FX

Presentation Final Midterm Assignment

 Course Focus

Fermentation
Biotechnnology

Bioprocess
Bioproducts
Engineering
BEN 505 Advanced Fermentation
Technologies
Introduction to Fermentation Technology
What is fermentation?
Fermentation is a process that involves the breakdown of carbs by bacteria
and yeast.

Fermentation is a non-oxygen-requiring pathway for breaking down glucose,

one that's performed by many types of organisms and cells.

Fermentation is an anaerobic process in which energy can be released from

glucose even if oxygen is not available

Fermentation is a process by which the living cell is able to obtain energy

through the breakdown of glucose and other simple sugar molecules without
requiring oxygen.
“fermentation, far from being a lifeless
phenomenon, is a living process…”
- Louis Pasteur
 Brief History of Fermentation
Over the course of human history, and using a system of
trial, error, and careful observation, different cultures
began producing fermented beverages.
At the time, people knew that leaving fruits and grains in
covered containers for a long time produced wine and
beer, but no one fully understood why the recipe worked.
The process was named fermentation, from the Latin
word fervere, which means "to boil."
The name came from the observation that mixtures of
crushed grapes kept in large vessels produced bubbles, as
though they were boiling.

Ref: https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/yeast-fermentation-and-the-making-of-beer-14372813/
Brief History of Fermentation
Through empirical observation, people learned that
temperature and air exposure are key to the fermentation
process.
Wine producers traditionally used their feet to soften and
grind the grapes. In this way, they transferred
microorganisms from their feet into the mixture.
At the time, no one knew that the alcohol produced during
fermentation was produced because of one of these
microorganisms — a tiny, one-celled eukaryotic fungus that
is invisible to the naked eye: yeast.

Rafael Ben-Ari / Alamy Stock Photo

Brief History of Fermentation
It took several hundred years before quality
lenses and microscopes revolutionized science
and allowed researchers to observe these
microorganisms.

Leeuwenhoek wasn't a trained scientist, but

he made his mark on the history of biology
by creating lenses powerful enough to
observe what no person had before

Dutch tradesman Antoni van

Leeuwenhoek, the first human to
observe microbes
Brief History of Fermentation
Our modern understanding of the fermentation
process comes from the work of the French
chemist Louis Pasteur.
Pasteur was the first to demonstrate
experimentally that fermented beverages result
from the action of living yeast transforming
glucose into ethanol.
Moreover, Pasteur demonstrated that only
microorganisms are capable of converting sugars
into alcohol from grape juice, and that the
process occurs in the absence of oxygen. French chemist Louis Pasteur
He concluded that fermentation is a vital
process, and he defined it as respiration without
air.
 Brief History of Fermentation
Pasteur performed careful experiments and
demonstrated that the end products of alcoholic
fermentation are more numerous and complex
than those initially reported by Lavoisier.

Lavoisier initially predicted that if it was possible to

combine alcohol and carbon dioxide in the right
proportions, the resulting product would be sugar.
The experiment provided a clear insight into the
basic chemical reactions needed to produce
alcohol.
French chemist Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier

However, there was one problem: Where did the

yeast fit into the reaction?
 Brief History of Fermentation
Pasteur found that along with alcohol and carbon
dioxide, there were also significant amounts of
glycerin, succinic acid, and amylic alcohol. These
observations suggested that fermentation was an
organic process.
To confirm his hypothesis, Pasteur reproduced
fermentation under experimental conditions, and his
results showed that fermentation and yeast
multiplication occur in parallel.
He realized that fermentation is a consequence of
the yeast multiplication, and the yeast have to be French chemist Louis Pasteur
alive for alcohol to be produced.
 Brief History of Fermentation
Pasteur also analyzed the chemical contents of the polluted
fermentation-containers in which he found a sour substance
containing a substantial amount of lactic acid instead of
alcohol.
In contrast, in the polluted containers, the ones containing
lactic acid, he observed "much smaller cells than the yeast."
Pasteur's finding showed that there are two types of
fermentation: alcoholic and lactic acid. Alcoholic fermentation
occurs by the action of yeast; lactic acid fermentation, by the
action of bacteria.
 Brief History of Fermentation
By the end of the nineteenth century, Eduard Buchner
had shown that fermentation could occur in yeast
extracts free of cells, making it possible to study
fermentation biochemistry in vitro.
Upon studying the cell-free extracts, Buchner detected
zymase, the active constituent of the extracts that
carries out fermentation.
He realized that the chemical reactions responsible for
fermentation were occurring inside the yeast.
Today researchers know that zymase is a collection of
enzymes.
For his discoveries, Buchner was awarded the Nobel
Prize in Chemistry in 1907.

German chemist Eduard Buchner

Brief History of Fermentation
Around 1929, Karl Lohmann, Yellapragada
Subbarao, and Cirus Friske independently
discovered an essential molecule called adenosine
triphosphate (ATP) in animal tissues.
ATP is a versatile molecule used by enzymes and
other proteins in many cellular processes.
It is required for many chemical reactions, such as
sugar degradation and fermentation.
In 1941, Fritz Albert Lipmann proposed that ATP
was the main energy transfer molecule in the cell.

Ref: https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/yeast-fermentation-and-the-making-of-beer-14372813/
Some important industrial fermentation products
Product Organism Use

Ethanol Saccharomyces Industrial solvents,

cerevisiae beverages
Glycerol Saccharomyces Production of
cerevisiae explosives
Lactic acid Lactobacillus Food and
bulgaricus pharmaceutical
Acetone and Clostridium Solvents
butanol acetobutylicum
-amylase Bacillus subtilis Starch hydrolysis
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 Other Products of Fermentation
• Food products: from milk (yogurt, kefir, cheese), fruits (wine, vinegar),
vegetables (pickles, sauerkraut, soy sauce), meat (fermented
sausages, salami), from grain (beer)
• Specialty chemicals (vitamins, pharmaceuticals)
Bioprocess Technology:
General Steps of Mass
Production of Organic
Substances
• Introduction of microbes and sterile
media into the reaction chamber
• Fermentation
• Downstream processing: recovery,
purification, and packaging of
product
• Removal of waste

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End of lecture

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