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Generally, biological reactors or bioreactors are used in treatment systems to biologically degrade contaminants found in municipal and industrial wastewaters. Conventionally, biological wastewater treatment systems have a unit for sludge [...]

Over the past few years, ethanol is slowly but surely becoming part of mainstream transportation fuels. Mandates across the North American and European Union regions have introduced ethanol as fuel [...]

Various organizations are beginning to use microalgae due to their positive impact on the environment. Microalgae can be easily incorporated into established industrial activities such as power plants, refineries, factories, [...]

Wastewater treatment is an energy-intensive process that utilizes up to 2% of all total worldwide power generating capacity. Annually, US $40 billion is spent on supplying 80,000 megawatts of energy [...]

Water pollution is one of the major environmental issues prevalent in today's world. Water pollution is not limited to above-the-ground sources of water; it is prominent in underground sources too. [...]

Availability of clean drinking water is a major concern, especially for people living in impoverished parts of the world. Wastewater treatment technologies have gained importance due to declining natural water [...]

Currently, bioreactors that are being utilized for producing algal biofuels face many challenges. Since all bioreactors work on the principle of mass transfer, efficient systems are required to increase the [...]

There has been continuous concern about utilizing food resources such as starch and edible oil as raw material for biofuels. In this regard, hemp is one of the alternative feedstocks [...]

Membrane bioreactors are getting a lot of attention due to their ability to treat water effectively without any negative effects to the surrounding environment. Membrane bioreactors usually employ a micro [...]

One of the key factors that highlight good biotech manufacturing units is the degree of sterility they employ for their equipment. To maintain high levels of sterility, copious amounts of [...]

Bioreactors have been integral to bioprocessing mainly in handling the size and cost of upstream and downstream processing, which at the same time help in determining product selectivity and productivity. [...]

Processing and manufacturing of biofuels currently consumes tremendous amount of energy making it completely uneconomical. Addressing the challenge, a team of researchers from the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering [...]

Last week, Technical Insights reported on the results of a lifecycle assessment (LCA) on lignocellulosic ethanol conversion technologies carried out by researchers from Drexel University in the United States. This [...]

Third-generation biofuel or algal fuel as the name suggests is the production of biofuel from algae or microalgae. Biofuels from other sources, either from first generation or from second generation [...]

The present world needs renewable biofuels to displace petroleum-derived transport fuels, which contribute to global warming and are of limited availability. Biodiesel produced from microalgae seems to be the only [...]

Clean, safe water is becoming scarce in several areas around the world. Recycled water is considered a promising solution to this growing problem. Membrane bioreactor (MBR) technology has been used [...]

United States Patent 7,531,350. Bioreactor for growing fungus, plant cell, tissue, organ, hairy roots and plantlet. A bioreactor includes a nutrient reservoir, a rotatable culture bed, at least one culture [...]

United States Patent 7,510,866. Hybrid bioreactor for cell culture. A hybrid bioreactor for cell culture is disclosed. To simultaneously apply compressive strain for cell differentiation and shear strain for cell [...]

The wastewater effluents released after food processing contains increased concentrations of total suspended solids (TSS), and organic contents present in the water might increase the chemical oxygen demand (COD). Hence. [...]

One of the major challenges faced by chiral amine production is to develop efficient and cheap processes that can be operated effectively on a commercial scale. In addition to this, [...]

Third generation biofuels produced from algae is gaining importance because algae cells grow abundantly in wastewater ponds and do not require arable land for cultivation. Nevertheless, algae do present certain [...]

Biodiesel is generally manufactured using a batch process, with a residence time ranging from one hour to several hours. As one of the best-known methods to reducing processing costs is [...]

Metalworking fluids (MWFs) are generally used to provide lubrication and cooling for metals during their shaping processes. These fluids act as major ingredients in metal manufacturing processes, but they are [...]

Technical Insights previously reported on Polyferm Canada as a new entrant to the polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) industry in October 2008. Since that time, the firm has constructed a pilot plant for [...]

Land fills are the most commonly used waste management systems, where the waste materials are buried and stored underground. Managing piled up wastes and garbage becomes a difficult task and [...]

The recent spurt in advantages of biofuels has kicked off intensive research into novel sources and manufacturing processes. The need for new oil stems from several reasons such as the [...]

Glycosylation is identified as a process of adding certain sugar molecules to plant proteins and gaining expertise in this process can help researchers in augmenting the bioavailability of novel proteins [...]

Making n-butanol by fermentation has not been commercially feasible in most countries for many years, but interest in new butanol fermentation processes is picking up. Butanol has potential as a [...]

Earlier, George Prpich and Andrew Daugulis of Queen's University in Canada used a solid-liquid, two-phase bioreactor to degrade a mixture of phenol, o-cresol, and 4-chlorophenol in water (IB 3/17/06). Later [...]

Isobutyraldehyde and 2-pentanone from chemical plant waste streams can become significant environmental contaminants if the streams are not properly treated. One way to remove these and many other chemicals is [...]

Biorefineries built around production of ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass need 'side stream' chemicals made from the same feedstock to help make their ethanol cost competitive with traditional fossil fuels, Georgia [...]

Many industrial processes produce effluents that can contaminate groundwater with the toxic, carcinogenic chromate (Cr) ion. Fabienne Battaglia-Brunet of France's Bureau de Recherches Geologiques et Minieres (BRGM) and his coworkers [...]

Although most of the US regions that had been using methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) as an oxygenating additive for gasoline have now stopped using it as groundwater pollution from [...]

Researchers at Taiwan's National Cheng Kung University have achieved a high rate of microbial hydrogen production from sucrose using a bioreactor seeded with silicone-immobilized sludge. They operated the continuously stirred [...]

In most anaerobic biomass fermentations to manufacture biogas part of the hydrogen, some organisms produce is used by others to generate methane, the main component of the gas. NanoLogix Inc. [...]

Arsenic has a long history as a poison for political assassinations and other crimes. Today it is a major contaminant of drinking water worldwide. Considerable research has been carried out [...]

Various types of reactors are used to culture the microalga Dunaliella salina, the main commercial source of beta-carotene. This natural pigment, which is also an antioxidant, is widely used in [...]

Sour petroleum crudes contain organic sulfur compounds that must be removed from the crude or refined products--both for their performance and to prevent the release of sulfur compounds into the [...]

In their studies on wastewater management, researchers at Australia's University of Queensland have devised a photosynthetic biofilm reactor to remove sulfide from wastewater. The biofilms are dominated by green sulfur [...]

Shang-Tian Yang and his coworkers at Ohio State University have adapted their bioreactor, in which active organisms are immobilized on a fibrous bed to produce butyric acid, remove benzene-toluene-ethylbenzene-xylene (BETX) [...]

Earlier we told you about a microbial process developed at the University of Ghent in Belgium to remove calcium carbonate from waste streams, avoiding the use of sodium hydroxide (IB [...]

Fermentation runs needed to characterize microbial strains for new fermentation processes, to optimize their environmental conditions, and to select strains for continued development are time-consuming and expensive. What is needed [...]

The main source for commercial natural beta-carotene is the alga, Dunaliella salina. Extracted from the organism, the compound finds a substantial market for use in foods, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. Researchers [...]

Development of new bioreactors for production of chemicals and for bioremediation of toxic industrial wastes is a big item in research carried out by Gordon Hill, of the University of [...]

Microalgae are a good source of antioxidant products such as tocopherols (vitamin E) and carotenoids, such as beta-carotene, and astaxanthin, which are finding growing markets in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and health [...]

The use of two separate bioreactors for carrying out enzymatic syntheses is becoming a popular approach to carrying out reactions. One reactor is operated with an aqueous medium, the other [...]

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is a toxic, foul smelling gas, but it would be useful in precipitating metals dissolved in waste streams from metal finishing, electronics, and mining installations. Metallic ions [...]