%0 Journal Article
%@ 13595113
%A Patnaik, P R
%D 1999
%F open:804
%I Elsevier Science
%J Process Biochemistry
%K Streptokinase fermentation; Inflow noise; Process improvement; Controlled filtering
%N 3-4
%P 309-315
%T Improvement of the microbial production of streptokinase by controlled filtering of process noise
%U http://crdd.osdd.net/open/804/
%V 35
%X Disturbances during operation are an ubiquitous feature of large-scale fermentations. This kind of process noise is often describable by a Gaussian distribution and is considered undesirable but unavoidable. In this paper, the fed-batch production of streptokinase (SK) was studied when such disturbances occurred in the inflow rate of the substrate. As the variance of the noise increased upto 6% of the instantaneous value of the flowrate, there was a gradual improvement in the SK activity, after which the activity decreased for larger variances. The peak activity (10 850 U/ml) was 22% higher than for a smooth noise-free feed. Similar earlier observations for β-galactosidase and β-lactamase suggest that normal disturbances may be harnessed to enhance fermentation efficiency by filtering them such that they are maintained within an optimal range.
%Z Copyright of this article belongs to Elsevier Science.