Technical difficulties during commercialization fall loosely into three interrelated categories (i) fermentation performance (ii) product purification and (iii) process scale-up.
Fermentation factors impacting process scale up include (i) seed train development, (ii) medium cost, (iii) process performance, (iii) scale dependent mass-transfer issues
Challenges during product purification include (i) recovery losses (ii) chemical purity and (iii) generating product for application testing.
Although demonstration of a bio-based technology at pilot scale (>1000L) is a required stage in the progression from laboratory to commercial scale, building a pilot plant may not be a good investment for most companies and has proven insurmountable in many instances.
MBI specializes in helping industrial biotechnology companies overcome some of these hurdles and demonstrate their technologies at 3000 L pilot scale, a point sufficient to establish scalability and commercial potential of a technology and plays a key role in securing further investment.
Opportunities and challenges of scale-up will be discussed with emphasis on the added challenges in the use of non-food derived carbon feedstocks.