Bioprocess Engineering 8 (1993) 255-262

BioprocessEngineering
9 Springer-Verlag 1993

A mathematical model for solid state fermentation in tray bioreactors

K. S. M. S. Raghava Rao, M.K. Gowthaman, N.P. Ghildyal and N.G. Karanth, Mysore, India

Abstract. A simple mathematical model for the interaction of mass transfer, SSF reactions are likely to be more advantageous.
transport with biochemical reaction in solid state fermentations In SSF, the water content is quite low and the microorgan-
(SSF) in static tray type bioreactors under isothermal conditions has ism is almost in contact with gaseous oxygen in the air,
been developed. The analysis has enabled scientific explanations to
a number of practical observations, through the concept of critical unlike in submerged fermentation (SmF). The overall biore-
substrate bed thickness. The model will bemost useful in the predic- action involves the transport of oxygen and water vapour
tion of the concentration gradients as also in efficient design of these into the microbial biomass on the substrate and the bioreac-
bioreactors. tion thereof. Oxygen is consumed and carbon dioxide is
produced through respiration. The reaction involves genera-
List of symbols tion of heat and the transport of he/tt and carbon dioxide
from the interior of the substrate into the gas phase. Because
C g/cm3 Oxygen concentration in the bed of the finite mass and heat transfer resistances, in the reac-
Co g/cma Atmospheric oxygen concentration tion biomass there will be concentration and temperature
C* - Dimensionless oxygen concentration, C/Cg
De cmZ/h Effective diffusivity gradients built up which need to be controlled. In order to
H cm Bed thickness or height design proper SSF reactors with minimum gradients and
Hc cm Critical bed thickness or height highest reaction rates it will be necessary to have suitable
Hm cm Maximum height of zone of zero oxygen concen- mathematical models :for the prediction of the course of the
tration
P~ mg/(g- h) Productivity (Eq. 13) reaction as well as temperature and concentration gradients.
R g/(cms- 11) Biochemical reaction rate The phenomena occurring in the SSF reaction can be
t h Fermentation time visualised as follows:
t* Dimensionless time, D e t / H 2 Initially the inoculum is uniformly mixed with the sub-
X mg/cm 3 Biomass concentration strate which consists of moist solid particles containing
X~ mg/cm3 Maximum biomass concentration
y Dimensionless thickness or height, (y = z/H) starch, cellulose, minerals, etc. The microbial (fungal/bacteri-
y' cm Thickness of zone of zero oxygen concentration al) particles which initially will be on the outer surface of the
(Eq. 12) substrate particles, will slowly grow, multiply and penetrate
y g biomass into the macro- and micropores of the solid. They consume
Yield coefficient
g oxygen
z CITl Bed thickness or height along tray axis the available energy sources e.g. starch hydrolysate. Secreted
Bed void fraction enzymes can also break down the starch and cellulose in the
#max h- 1 Specific growth rate substrate to provide energy. A balanced breakdown may in
fact be necessary for healthy growth, that is, too much hy-
Thiele modulus ~/De Cg Y
drolysed product at any time may give rise to catabolite
repression. The rate of reaction will be controlled by the
kinetics, which depends on the concentrations of substrate,
1 Introduction products, oxygen, temperature and pH in the immediate
vicinity of the microorganisms. Transport effects will govern
Solid State Fermentation (SSF) has recently come to attract the concentration and temperature gradients in the solid
a great deal of scientific attention in view of its untapped mass. Oxygen concentration profiles in the substrate will be
potential for industrial exploitation [6-8]. SSF involves the initially uniform across the bed. But slowly gradients will
growth of microorganisms on moist solid substrate in the develop due to consumption, which are further accentuated
absence of free water and simulates the fermentation reac- by variable rates of reaction caused by the gradients them-
tions that occur in nature. Because of the efficient oxygen selves. As the reaction proceeds, the transport of heat and
256 Bioprocess Engineering 8 (1993)

mass are also affected by the change in the properties (i.e. 02 C02 Heat
effective thermal conductivity, effective diffusivity etc.) of the i I I Externol. firm
solid substrate due to the mycelial growth. The substrate . . . . i ! l_
gets consumed and therefore a reduction of the kinetics oc-
curs, stopping at the stage where the substrate or a critical
nutrient is exhausted. H
In the literature, there is little information on the basic
z=H
engineering aspects of SSF involving transport of heat and
" L
mass in the solid substrate and their interaction on the biore-
action [7, 8]. While the importance of mass transfer has been
emphasised [4], most of the quantitative treatments involv-
ing mathematical models have been concerned with the dif-
fusion of oxygen in mold pellets submerged in liquid [1, 3, 12] Voriotion of 02 concentration
pretties with time
which are not really applicable to SSF involving no free
z=0 Cg
liquid. In view of the absence of information on mathemati-
cal models for SSF, an attempt has been made to develop a
model for mass transfer in a static tray type bioreactor which
is the most common type of SSF, called "Koji" fermentor, in
order to throw more light on the interaction of transport
phenomena with bioreaction in SSF systems and to evolve
guidelines for efficient design if possible. This is the subject
matter of this communication. = eof~T t:0
Zon zero oxygen
concentration
2 Mathematical model Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of SSF tray type bioreactor.

2.1 General description

The transport phenomena occurring in a tray type SSF bio- Writing the gaseous oxygen balance equation over an
reactor is schematically shown in Fig. 1. Gaseous oxygen dif- infinitesimal slab of thickness Az and then taking limits as
fuses from the bulk gas over the tray, through the stagnant Az -+ O, we obtain:
film on to the porous substrate bed and is consumed by the
microorganism to yield biomass and product. The carbon ~2C R ~C
dioxide and heat produced by the metabolism travel in the D~ ~z2 Y = e -~-, (1)
reverse way from the interior of the bed to the bulk gas.
Initially there is a uniform concentration of oxygen (atmo- where, D e is the effective diffusivity; e is the void fraction of
sphere) throughout the bed and the same is true of carbon the bed; Y is the biomass yield factor; R is the reaction rate.
dioxide. As the bioreaction starts and progresses, oxygen It is assumed that biomass production rate R, follows the
gets consumed and concentration gradients are built up as logistic equation, as suggested by Ollis [11]:
shown in Fig. 1. Depending on the rate of consumption of
dX ( X )
oxygen as well as the resistance to mass transfer, there can R = d t - = #m.x X I X~ax (2)
be a situation in which the oxygen concentration in the
interior of the bed drops to a very low value. The situation
where #maxis the maximum specific growth rate; Xma x is the
is similar to gas solid noncatalytic reaction in which reaction
maximum biomass concentration.
takes place throughout the solid.
Assuming no mass transfer resistance in the static film of
For the purpose of the model development, the following
gas on the substrate bed and no flux at the bottom end of the
assumptions are made:
bed (bottom plate unperforated), the following initial and
1. Oxygen is the limiting reactant and the energy source boundary conditions can be written:
(sugar/starch) is in excess.
2. The reaction has zero order dependence on oxygen con- Initial conditions: t = 0, C = Ca at all z,
centration but does not proceed in the absence of oxygen
Boundary conditions: z = 0, C = Cg; z = H, ~C = 0 "
N-~ (3)
[91.
3. The substrate bed is isothermal causing neither convec- Non-dimensionalising using
tive mass transfer nor reaction rate enhancement due to
heat. C*=C/Cg; y = z / H and t * = t De/H 2
K. S. M. S. Raghava Rao et al.: A mathematical model for solid state fermentation in tray bioreactors
Eq. (1) becomes:
~2C* HZR ~C
~y2 D e C o Y - at*"
Correspondingly the initial and boundary conditions will
change as:
Initial conditions: t =0, C * = 1 at all H ,
~C*
Boundary conditions: y = 0 , C * = I ; y = l , ~ =0.
2.2 Pseudo steady state approximation
As the bioreaction is relatively slow taking days for comple-
tion, it can be assumed that the spatial profiles of concentra-
tion are established much faster than the time profiles. Thus
the variation with reference to time can be neglected in
comparison with the variation with reference to space.
Then Eq. (4) becomes a second order ordinary differential
equation:
d2C*
- - -~b2=0,
dy 2
where, q5=N/H 2 R / D e C o Y, which is very similar to the
"Thiele modulus" of heterogeneous chemical catalysis. This
is a dimensionless term and a measure of the rate at which
the substrate is consumed in relation to the rate at which it
is supplied by the diffusion process.
Equation (6) has an analytical solution of the form:
which enables the prediction of the oxygen concentration
within the substrate bed.
2.3 Critical bed depth
As the value of the parameter ~b increases, the oxygen con-
centration profiles become steeper and at a certain value of
q~, the concentration at the bottom of the bed becomes zero.
Beyond this, the plane at which oxygen concentration drops
to zero travels upwards, causing a growing zone of zero
oxygen concentration which leads to a cessation of reaction
in this zone. The same effect is obtained as the design thick-
ness of the tray increases since q5 is a function of the tray
height. There is therefore a certain bed height at which the
oxygen concentration at the bottom of the bed just drops to
zero and this is termed as the critical bed height He. An
expression for H c is obtained by putting C * = 0 at y = 1 in
Eq. (7) which yields:
2 ~ CoY
257
Assuming De, C o and Y is to be constant, the critical
design bed thickness is given by the maximum value of R.
From Eq. (2), the maximum value of R is obtained as:
(4)
Rmax = #max Xmax/4 , (9)
substituting this in Eq. (8), we have:
H e = 2 _ / 2 D e C~ Y . (10)
' ~/ #max Xmax
(5)
Therefore, knowing # . . . . X m a x and Y from the intrinsic
kinetics and transport parameter De, the critical design
depth of the tray bioreactor can be calculated.
2.4 Zone of zero oxygen concentration
When the height of the substrate bed is more than critical
depth, oxygen concentration becomes zero at a bed depth y'
and the boundary conditions in Eq. (5) get modified as:
y=O, C*=1
dC*
y = y ' , C*=O and ~ = 0 . (11)
(6)
Using these boundary conditions, we have from the solution
of Eq. (6):
y,= /2De_Co r
N/ HZ R with ~2_>2. (12)
3 Results and discussion
The parameter ~b indicates the relative importance of diffu-
sion and reaction, q~ determines the steepness of the oxygen
concentration profiles and also whether it drops to zero and
ff so, at what height. It is interesting to examine the influence
of the parameters involved in the expression for critical bed
height given by Eq. (8).
When the height of the substrate be increases beyond the
critical height, H c, increasing proportion of the bed will
undergo oxygen starvation, which leads not only to ineffi-
cient use of the reactor but also to undesirable situation like
anaerobiosis and cell lysis etc. Each of the factors involved
in the expression for H c, viz., D e, Cg, Y and R will affect the
value of He. Thus higher the effective diffusivity, lower is the
value of ~b, leading to reduced mass transfer resistance and
increasing design thickness. Since D e is a function of not only
the oxygen diffusivity but also porosity as well as mycelial
growth pattern, the structure of the substrate bed, nature of
packing as well as changing fungal characteristics with fer-
mentation will affect the design thickness. The minimum
value of D e will decide the critical bed height. Higher value
of the gas phase oxygen concentration will also lead to a
higher bed height. This can be achieved in two ways:
a) Rapid replenishing of the air over the tray by circulation,
so that oxygen concentration in the bulk gas does not drop
by consumption.
258 Bioprocess Engineering 8 (1993)

b) Oxygen enrichment of air. This has been experimentally "34 h

proved by Bajracharya and Mudgett [2] for SSF for rice for
*O
amylase production and Mudgett and Bajracharya [10] for
c
~ 0.97 - - 16 h
fermentation of agricultural wastes. :4C
2 32h
This also gives an idea that if forced circulation is used, c

then the gradients could be considerably reduced and design c

2O h
o
thickness enhanced. c 0.92
o)
Industrial tray type SSF fermentors use perforated bot- >., g
tom plates as reported by Ghildyal et al. [5] and Cannel and
Moo-Young [4] for better mass transfer characteristics. This g
is easily understood through the model. For example, the E
L_
g 0.87 2~h ~
value of Hc is the thickness of the tray when the bottom 30 h
o
phase is having no perforations. If the bottom side was E
completely exposed to air, then critical thickness will be ~5
double that predicted by Eq. (8). In practice, the bottom will 26h
have to have perforations which will increase H c to a value 0.82 I ~ I 28 h
0 0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00
less than twice.
Dimensionless t r a y depth y
Another point to be noted is that it will be less than
optimum to design for a tray thickness based on the lowest Fig. 2. Oxygen concentration profiles over tray depth y at different
times of fermentation for a bed with total height H = 2 cm
values of D e, C o and highest value of R. This is because most
of the time the reaction rate will be at a lower value and by
arranging to reduce transport gradients by forced circula-
Table 1. Experimental data for C O 2 evolved during fermentation
tion just at the time of peak demand, one can conveniently from which biomass X was calculated as 1 ml CO 2 =2.12 mg dry
use a higher design thickness without sacrificing the bioreac- mycelium [15]
tot efficiency.
CO 2 t X R
(ml/g) (h) (mg/cm3) (g/(cm3 -h))

4 Example 0.132 10 0.280 0.083

0.200 12 0.424 0.125
0.300 14 0.636 0.185
The aspects which were discussed so far can be explained 0.450 16 0.954 0.274
even better with an example. For this purpose, the data 0.700 18 0.484 0.415
reported in the literature is taken (Sugama et al. [15]). With 1.000 20 2.120 0.574
the help of logistic equation for growth of biomass and the 1.700 22 3.604 0.900
2.500 24 5.300 1.200
procedure given by Ollis [11], using that data, the value of 4.000 26 8.480 1.550
]'/maxiS obtained and the reaction rate R is calculated. These 5.000 28 10.600 1.620
are shown in Table 1. Other parameter values are also taken 7.500 30 15.900 1.260
from literature. For instance, the effective diffusivity D e is 9.500 32 20.140 0.414
10.300 34 21.600 0.006
taken as 0.03 cmZ/s (Masamune and Smith [14]). The value
of Y is taken as 1.07 (Sugama et al. [15]) taking the respira- Xm~=21.62
tory quotient as unity. C o is taken as atmospheric oxygen
concentration.
The concentration profiles (Eq. 7) for different substrate 0.9 at y = 0 . 6 and 1.0 respectively at 22 h of fermentation
bed heights for these data are shown in Figs. 2-5. Fig. 2, time. Whereas, from Fig. 3, for a bed depth H = 5 cm, the
shows the gradual development of the oxygen concentration corresponding values of C* are 0.52 and 0.42 respectively.
profile across the depth of the bed thickness of 2 cm. The Further, Fig. 3 indicates steeper profdes and in fact the oxy-
profiles for times less than 16 h are not shown as they are gen concentration drops to zero at the bottom of the bed
close to unity, due to negligible bioreaction taking place somewhere between 24 and 26 h. The biochemical reaction
throughout. After 20 h however, the profiles become steeper, stops effectively when oxygen is not available (exhausted) or
the concentration at the bottom of the bed (y = 1) reaching when the reaction reaches a stationary phase. In the present
its lowest value of 0.825 in 28 h of fermentation. For the example, the former situation is more applicable. Figs. 4 and
same conditions (i.e. Cg, D e and Y remaining same) increas- 5 depict the situation for deeper beds of 7 cm and 9 cm
ing total bed depth H increases the value of the parameter q~, respectively, indicating even steeper concentration gradients
resulting in a corresponding decrease in the oxygen concen- wherein the interior concentrations of oxygen drops to zero
tration C* at a given location y in the bed. For example, at earlier fermentation times as also at distances closer to the
Fig. 2 shows that for H = 2 cm, the values of C* are 0.92 and top surface of the substrate bed.
K. S. M. S. Raghava Rao et al.: A mathematical model for solid state fermentation in tray bioreactors 259

1.00 3/'h 1.00 ---- -- -3/, h

,(..) k
12h
*U C
g 16 h .o
:.,,c %
P 0.75 ~- 0.75 - - 12h
32h
c
c
o 20h = o
u
g
L~
0.50 2 ~0.50
x
o 16h E
22h ,E
04
g g
"~ 0.25 "~
c
0.25
c:
2/. h
30 h
k5 ;=' 32h

0 i
0 0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00 0 0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00
Dimensientess trey depth y Dimensionless troy depth y

Fig. 3. Oxygen concentration profiles over tray depth y at different Fig. 5, Oxygen concentration profiles over tray depth y at different
times of fermentation for a bed with total height H = 5 cm times of fermentation for a bed with total height H = 9 cm

1.00 "3/' h 1.00

*(_)

20 12 h
= 0.80
~ 025

16h Uc
8 go 0.6o
g
g ~6 g
E))
0.50
x 32h~ ~
o
E o./'o

.=-o

0.25 20h
0.20

28h--~\ \ k 2 / , h ~ - 2 2 h y:l.0 /
0 26h \
0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00 10 15 20 25 30 h 35
Dimensientess troy depth y Fermenfotien time
Fig. 4. Oxygen concentration profiles over tray depth y at different Fig. 6. Variation of C* with fermentation time at different locations
times of fermentation for a bed with total height H = 7 cm y in the bed for H = 5 cm

An observation from Figs. 2 - 5 is that when the total bed
height H is slightly less than 5 cm, the oxygen concentration
at y = 1 just drops to zero giving critical bed height H c. This
value is found to be 4.78 cm b o t h through the profiles as well
as from Eq. (12).
In Fig. 6, C* is plotted against fermentation time at differ-
ent locations in the bed. It can be observed that oxygen
concentrations at all locations within the bed decreases with
fermentation time to reach the lowest value at a b o u t 28 h.
Thereafter, a reversal occurs and C* starts increasing. This
is due to the fact that as the reaction rate R decreases in the
decelerating phase (after 28 h, see Table 1), the oxygen con-
sumption reduces resulting in an increase in effective oxygen
availability at all locations in the bed from 28 h onwards.
The reversal in oxygen concentration is also reported by
R a t h b u n and Shuler [13], during experimental studies on
Tempeh fermentation in l a b o r a t o r y tray fermenter using
Rhizopus oligosporus. A point to be noted is that after 28 h,
though the reaction rate is decreasing as indicated by the
increase in C*, biomass is forming till 34 h and this forma-
260 Bioprocess Engineering 8 (1993)

1.00 10

%
cm H=10 cm

0.75
8cm
8 6

c
E
o)
>.,

o
~ 0.25
0.50

H=t
b-
/
0 i 0 i
15 25 35 h 10 15 20 25 30 35
Fermentation time Fermentation time

Fig. 7. Variation of C* with fermentation time at the bottom of the Fig. 8. Tray height z' of zero oxygen concentration zone as a func-
tray (y= 1.0) for various bed heights H tion of fermentation time for various bed heights H

tion is quite significant (two fold, Table 1). Fig. 7 indicates 3

the change in oxygen concentrations C* with fermentation mg
gh H
time at the bottom of the tray for different substrate bed 9 1,2,3, z,.78 cm
thicknesses, giving similar observation as that of Fig. 6. o5cm
However, an additional observation is that, at larger bed 9 8cm
thicknesses, the oxygen concentration at the b o t t o m of the 2 10 c m
bed falls to zero earlier than 28 h indicated by the onset of
the decelerating phase as given in Table 1. Thus, for the bed >
%
of 8 cm thickness, oxygen concentration at the bottom of the "ID
tray falls to zero at 21.5 h itself. o
s
F r o m Figs. 6 and 7, it also can be seen that the oxygen 1
concentration may fall to zero even before reversal occurs,
depending on the height of the bed. This indicates that there
exists a critical bed height above which the oxygen concen-
tration drops to zero.
In other words, in the bed of certain height H (H > H c, I
critical bed height), with the progress of fermentation, the 10 20 3O h
oxygen concentration falls to zero at some interior location Fermentation time
in the substrate bed, resulting in a zone of zero oxygen Fig. 9. Effect of tray height H on productivity P as a function of
concentration within the bioreactor. The height of the zero fermentation time
oxygen concentration can be calculated from Eq. (12) or can
be obtained visually from the concentration profile plots.
Further, the height of this zero oxygen concentration in- In the design of the tray bioreactor, it is necessary to use
creases from a zero value with increasing fermentation time the optimum thickness of the substrate bed giving a best
in the same bed. However, once the reversal occurs, as de- overall performance. Therefore, question arises whether the
scribed above, the height of this zone starts decreasing critical bed height is the optimal bed height or not. In spite
sharply to reach a zero value again. This can be seen from of the presence of oxygen depleted zone, can a reactor of bed
Fig. 8, where the height of zero oxygen concentration is thickness larger than the critical thickness be the optimum
plotted against fermentation time at different bed heights. to be used? In order to examine this question it is required
Further, it can be observed that the maximum height to assess the biomass productivity and total biomass formed
(Hm) of the zone of zero oxygen concentration increases with in the bioreactor.
increasing total substrate bed depths. For example, this val- The productivity is calculated as follows. Let Xo,
ue Hm is 3.5 cm, 6.2 cm and 8.6 cm for total substrate bed X t , ... X~, ... X , be the average biomass concentrations in
depths of 6, 8 and 10 cm respectively. the effective reaction zones at different fermentation times,
K. S. M. S. Raghava Rao et al.: A mathematical model for solid state fermentation in tray bioreactors
600
g unity, the biomass formation is proportional to total bed
500
E with an increase in bed height.
o
~c2 &O0
'5
"5
I.--
300
200 I f z i i
0 2 4 6 8 10 cm 12
Tray height z
Fig. 10. Effect of tray height H on total biomass for the entire
fermentation time of 34 hours
to, tl, ... q , . . . t n. Let Yl be the dimensionless height of the
effective reaction zone where oxygen is available at time t i .
Then, productivity is given by:
P~= X I - X i - 1 " Yi , (13)
ti--ti_l
where i = 1 to n. Yi is calculated from Eq. (12).
Figure 9 gives the productivity versus fermentation time
for differenet tray thicknesses. From this plot it is clear that
as long as the bed height is less than or equal to critical bed
height (that is H_<4.78 cm) the productivity profile is the
same. Upto this point, y~ is always unity and there is no zero
oxygen zone existing in the beds. However, when the bed
height is slightly higher than critical height (H>H~), say
5 cm, y~ is 0.78 and 0.7 at 26 and 28 hrs respectively. Hence
productivity drops at these points as shown in the figure.
Once reversal in the zero oxygen concentration zone occurs
at 28-30 h, y~ becomes unity, and the productivity is once
again restored and increases to an even higher value. Simi-
larly, for bed heights of 8 and 10 cm, the zones of zero oxygen
concentration are larger, thus decreasing y~ substantially
which in turn, results in lower productivity levels at those
situations, before it is restored due to reversal in C*. To-
wards the end of the fermentation, the productivity shows a
decrease at all situations, due to the fact that the incremental
biomass formation decreases as the bioreaction approaches
stationary phase. From this discussion, it is clear that critical
bed height is also the optimal height for a tray fermentor.
This is further substantiated by plotting total biomass
formed during the entire fermentation time (34 hrs) against
bed height, as shown in Fig. 10. The total biomass formed is
calculated for unit area of the trays and unit medium density:
Total biomass = L ( X ~ - X i _ t) H yi 9
i=l
261
Upto the critical total height (H c = 4.78 cm), Yi is always
height and hence it increased with an increase in bed height.
Whereas, for higher bed heights (H>Hc), Yi varies from 1 to
0 and it is observed (from calculations of total biomass for-
mation) that Yi has more pronounced effect than H, on
biomass formed. Therefore total biomass formed decreased
It may be noted that the carbon dioxide concentration
profiles will show an opposite trend to that of oxygen in that,
the carbon dioxide concentration will be at the minimum
atmospheric value on the surface of the substrate bed and
reach a maximum at the bottom of the bed, the profiles
becoming steeper with increasing values of the parameter qS.
5 Conclusions
Application of the model to practical system requires the
values of the transport parameter D e and kinetic parameters
#max and Y which have to be obtained separately. A number
of simplifying assumptions have been made which can be
considered as limitation of the model. For example, kinetics
and of the reaction is taken to be zero only with respect to
oxygen and film diffusion effects are ignored. Also, only the
growth of biomass is considered to indicate the performance
of the bioreactor whereas, product formation kinetics will be
highly relevant. Another far reaching assumption is that of
isothermality in the bioreactor which may simplify the math-
ematical analysis but may not be the situation obtained in
practice. Temperature gradients could be highly important.
However, with all these limitations, the model is a first seri-
ous attempt in quantitatively explaining the interaction of
transport effects with biochemical reaction in SSF systems
and has succeeded in putting a number of facts observed in
practice in a scientific perspective. Further, the limitations
cited above can be considered to be the field of opportunities
for biochemical engineers to pursue further work on the
engineering aspects of SSF, in order to evolve useful design
and operational criteria for those systems.
Acknowledgements
This work was carried out under the project on Solid State Fermen-
tation (No. BT/TF/25/03/009/89) of Department of Biotechnology,
Government of India, whose financial assistance is gratefully ac-
knowledged. Thanks are also due to Mr. M. M. Krishniah, Chair-
man, Food Engineering, CFTRI for active encouragement.
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408 -412
Received March 23, 1992
K. S. M. S. Raghava Rao
Process Engineering and Plant Design
Dr. N. G. Karanth (corresponding author).
N. P. Ghildyal
M. K. Gowthaman
Fermentation Technology and Bioengineering
Central Food Technological Research Institute
Mysore 570013
India