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Biochemical Engineering involves the application of Chemical Engineering principles and approaches to biologically-based systems and processes. Biochemical Engineering is central to the area of environmental engineering, and to biotechnology processes which produce pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals and genetically-engineered products. The course involves a systematic and quantitative description of medium formulation and sterilization, microbial kinetics and bioreactor design, product isolation and purification, and examples of current industrial practices and processes (0/0/0/30/12).

The objective of this course is to develop a systematic and quantitative description of medium formulation, medium and equipment sterilization, cell growth kinetics, bioreactor and bioprocess design, and product isolation and purification. Students will be introduced to several current biochemical engineering based processes.

The specific course learning outcomes (CLOs) include for the student to:

1. Design culture medium based on nutritional requirements of microbial cells.
2. Specify design criteria for medium sterilization and solve problems involving both batch and continuous sterilization.
3. Apply the principles of microbial growth kinetics in bioreactors.
4. Simulate and evaluate bioreactor performance.
5. Apply mass and heat transfer correlations to bioreactor design.
6. Design a complete bioreactor based on targets, constraints and physical properties.
7. Identify suitable process instrumentation for monitoring and control of bioreactors.
8. Know and select process unit operations for product recovery and purification.

This course assesses the following attributes:

Knowledge base for engineering (CLO 1-4):

• Applies knowledge of cellular processes to engineering problems (KB-BIO-1);
• Applies foundations of mathematics, science, and engineering in the biological setting (KB-BIO-2);
• Solves problems involving convective mass transfer using appropriate correlations (KB-MT-3);
• Solves problems involving convective heat transfer using appropriate correlations (KB-HT-3).

Design (CLO 5-8):

• Develops detailed specifications incorporating performance requirements, constraints and assumptions (DE-3).