Enhancement of Oxygen Transfer through Membranes in Bioprocesses

Abstract

In several aerobic bioprocesses, it is extremely important to provide a sufficient amount of oxygen, which is a difficult task since the solubility of oxygen in aqueous systems, namely in water, is low. Thus oxygen transfer techniques should be designed, built, studied and operated very carefully in biosystems. Moreover, in certain cases, special techniques, e.g. involving membranes, must be applied. In this paper, three different bioprocesses are presented where oxygen was supplied by membrane aeration: wastewater treatment by microbial consortia (i), itaconic acid fermentation by a single microorganism (ii) and an oxidative enzyme catalytic process for the elimination of glucose (iii).