Continuous Culture: A Tool for Research, Development and Production

The theory of continuous culture was formalized 35 years ago. Considerable advancement and development of this technique has occurred. In particular, it has become a powerful tool for laboratory research, process development and manufacturing. Some examples of how continuous culture has been used to solve problems by the biochemical process industry are addressed here. In a research laboratory it has become an important technique to understand the environmental factors that control product formation. In the pilot plant, it has become a powerful tool to understand process scale-up by allowing the investigator to examine a scale of parameters of process operation. In manufacturing, it has become important to not only low value, high volume commodity type products of single cell protein, but also in the development of unique manufacturing processes.