PROCESS SELECTION &

DESIGN PROCEDURE

2.1

PROCESS SELECTION

The different processes of manufacturing SCP include many species of different

microorganisms (bacteria, yeast, filamentous fungi, algae) grown on a wide variety of
carbon substrates (carbon dioxide, methanol, ethanol, acetate and cellulose, hydrocarbon,
materials from many different by-products and wastes sources).
Five basic approaches are used:

Growth of bacteria on natural gas

Growth of yeasts on ethyl alcohol

Growth of yeasts or bacteria on methanol

Growth of yeasts or bacteria on the gas oil fraction or crude oil

Growth of yeast or bacteria on purified n-alkanes separated from crude oil.

For the production of single cell protein for feed purposes from the above mentioned
sources. Proper selection of microbial culture is most important. Criteria for selection are
as follows:

Capable of rapid growth on low cost culture media

Yield biomass with a high protein content

Produce protein which is palatable and nontoxic.

2.2

SELECTION OF MICRO-ORGANISM

Bacterial SCP is generally comparable to fish meal running around 60-65% crude
protein; yeast SCP is more like soy meal running 45-55% crude protein (for n-paraffin up
to 65%, [16] and fungi SCP is usually somewhat lower in protein content [18]. In most
SCP processes, the carbon substrate is present in relatively low concentration, either
because of its solubility or because the amount that can be tolerated by the given microorganism is limited.
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In algae process, the amount of carbon dioxide in air (0-3%)is in adequate for growth and
additional carbon dioxide must be supplied from sources such as carbonates and
Bicarbonates in alkaline waters or from deposits of carbonaceous materials, from
combustion gas, or from the decomposition of organic mater or sewage or industrial
wastes. Yeast in particular; has been known for a long time to be concentrated sources of
high quality protein. Yeast has an advantage over bacteria in the fact that they are easy to
harvest by centrifugation or filtration due to large cell diameter. Yeast, as SCP, is
psychologically more palatable for human consumption. Although the useful protein
contents of bacteria and yeast are similar, bacteria have a higher content of nucleic acids
which is undesirable to animals in large amount. So yeast is preferred for the production
of single cell protein.

2.3

SELECTION OF SUBSTRATE

In case of gaseous substrate, no yeast have been reported which are able to utilize
gaseous hydrocarbons for their growth [19]. Ethanol has been used for the production of
c.utilis by pure culture products but synthetic ethanol may contain the impurities
propanol, 2-methyl 2- propanol and 2-butanol.They should not present in ethanol
produced by yeast fermentation.2-butanol inhibits the growth of c.utilis lengthens the lag
phase, decreases cell yield and decreases the crude protein content of the cells in batch
growth systems. Methanol had been used for the production of SCP at different plants
such as ICI. Institute of petrol France during 1970s but it has much larger predicted
demands for motor fuel and steel industry. So it is not recommended for the production of
SCP now-a-days. In the development of SCP based on hydrocarbon, British petroleum
evaluated both gas oil containing 25% C15 to C30 n-alkanes (boiling range 300 380 C
and purified n-alkanes prepared by molecular sieve process 97.5-99% C10-C23 (boiling
range 135-300 C) as substrate for Candida species.
The disadvantage of using gas oil or kerosene is that it is not economically possible to
operate with the feed stock in such a way to effect complete assimilation of n-paraffin
content of the appropriate fraction. In addition, effluent broth from the bio reaction still
contains the non-metabolized hydrocarbons comprising 70-90% of the initial feed.
Therefore a complex scheme of physical operation is required to recover the yeast in this

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type of process. A four phase system (one gaseous, one solid and two liquid) has to be
separated and special centrifuges are necessary.
If pure n-paraffin are to be used as substrates, they must be separated from the distillate
fraction in which they occur and this feed stock is however costly. Using pure n-paraffin,
the bio process can be adjusted to consume almost 100% of the added feed stock
(yielding one kg biomass for each Kg of n-paraffin consumed). In this way, the residual
hydrocarbon content of the effluent is reduced to a minimal level and a fully acceptable
product can be obtained by simple concentration and drying process. Normal paraffin
containing from 10-20 carbon atoms are most suitable carbon source for the yeast.

2.4

SELECTION OF THE PROCESS

Yeast (Candida tropicalis) is selected to be cultivated on purified n-hexadecane for the following
reasons.
2.4.1

HIGHER YIELD

Yield of Candida tropicalis on n-hexadecane is 100% [19].

2.4.2

HIGHER GROWTH RATE

Growth rate of Candida tropicalis is higher than other yeast strains that is 0.29 hrs [19].
2.4.3 EASE IN HARVESTING
Particles size of yeast is (2.8 m) is larger than bacteria, and is easy to harvest without
additional facilities of agglomeration and floatation. It is simply concentrated in
centrifuge and spray dried.

2.5

SELECTED PROCESS AND FLOW SHEET

Purified n-hexadecane is used as raw material. It is liquid at ambient temperature. Nhexadecane is stored at in a storage tank 41.8 m3 prior to use. From their required amount
for simple batch is pump to the sterilizer

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2.5.1

STERILIZATION PROCESS

Water, minerals and phosphoric acid is directly added to the sterilizer. It is an agitated
tank having both diameter and length 2.84 m. hold up in sterilizer is 5.5 hrs. Sterilization
is accomplished by heating the mixture up to 121 C. Steam is used on jacket side for
heating purpose. Feed mixture is heated in two steps. In first step it is heated from
ambient temperature to 100 C in 5 hrs using steam at the rate of 447 Kg/hr at 133.9 kPa
(108 C) then steam flow rate is increased to 1382.27 Kg/hr having pressure 1098.3 kPa
(184.3 C ) to heat the mixture from 100-121 C in 30 minutes. Mixture is held at 121 C
for 10 minutes then it is cooled down to 30-32 C using shell and tube heat exchanger and
fed to the fermentor
2.5.2

FERMENTOR

Fermentor is an agitated vessel of 20.234 m3. 491.1 liter (10% W/V) of inoculum is used.
Yeast (Candida trpicalis) is used as inoculum. Temperature of the fermentation broth is to
be maintained at 32C and pH at 5.5 [19]. Excess air is supplied to the fermentor at rate
of 3524.5 Kg/hr to oxidized n-hexadecane and 5.07 Kg/hr of ammonia is supplied as
nitrogen source and also to maintain the pH of the fermentation broth. CO 2 is produced
during fermentation which is vented off with excess air. Reaction time is 7 hrs.
Fermentation is highly exothermic, 9.33x106 KJ. Heat is produced during fermentation.
As heat duty id to much (1.33x10 3 KJ) both jacket and coil is used to remove heat from
fermentor. 1.5 inch tube (18 BWG) is used as coil length of coil is 157 m. jacket diameter
is 0.09 m. cooling water at 4 C is used on jacket side at the rate of 3339.25 Kg/hr and in
the coil at the rate of 8343.5Kg/hr. loading discharging and cleaning is done in one hr so
batch time is 8 hrs.
2.5.3

HOLDING TANK

From fermentor the fermentation broth is pumped to holding tank of 30 m3 at the rate of
33.664 m3/hr. after 4 hrs the broth is pumped to the centrifuge at the rate of 4125 Kg/hr
(2.01 m3/hr).

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2.5.4

CENTRIFUGE

Peripheral nozzle discharge disk bowl type centrifuge is used to concentrate the broth to
15 % W/V. this concentrated broth, 283.33 Kg/hr (0.0241 m3/hr) is introduced to the
spray dryer to be dried up to 4 % moisture
2.5.5

SPRAY DRYER AND CYCLONE SEPERATOR

Feed and air enter the spray dryer co currently and dried product leave the spray dryer at
the rate of 35.416 Kg/hr. residence time is 5.92 sec. The air leaving the spray dryer
contain some product in it which is introduced to cyclone separator to recover the
remaining traces of product (8.67 Kg/hr). The product leaving from the spray dryer and
cyclone separator is sent to the storage tank using the screw conveyor.

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