APPLICATION OF GLASS CERAMIC CARRIERS IN BIOTECHNOLOGY PROCESSES

摘要

Glass ceramic carriers are ideally suited for biotechnological production processes and waste water treatment. There is also a great importance of such carriers in the corresponding down stream processing field for fine chemicals and proteins. The advantages of glass are: not compactable, not swelling, chemically stable, sterilizable with steam, adjustable porosity, adjustable pore diameter, modifiable surface (hydrophilic, hydrophobic) and acceptable prize. Especially macroporous glass carriers offer the possibility to attach a biocata-lytic system (enzymes, microorganisms, mammalian cells) or an affinity ligand to the inner surface. Thus a high catalyst concentration respectively ligand concentration can be established avoiding pore diffusion limitation. In biotechnology glass carriers are used in fixed bed reactors, fixed bed loop reactors and fluidized bed reactors.