| Biotechnology is a expanding field with great economic potential for engineers able to apply chemical engineering fundamentals to problems in microbiology and biochemistry. There is a shortage of engineers trained in the life sciences for monitoring, designing and scaling-up biotechnology processes. To meet the educational needs of the growing biotechnology industry, a undergraduate biotechnology laboratory was developed. The experiments for the laboratory were designed to minimize operating costs, waste disposal problems, and demonstrate applications of chemical engineering principles in biotechnology. This thesis incorporates six experiments: batch ethanol fermentation, enzyme kinetics, fermentation mass transfer, fermentation power transfer, immobilized biocatalysts and membrane filtration. Each experiment is a chapter of the thesis with its own abstract, introduction, background, theoretical analysis, results, conclusions, recommendations, and an appendix containing specific experimental protocols. |
