Overview

Biochemical engineering is a vibrant branch of chemical engineering with a significant current presence and even greater promise for the future. In terms of development, it can be compared with the petrochemical industry in the 1920s. Despite its major potential, biochemical engineering has not yet been integrated into the standard undergraduate curriculum for chemical engineers. This means that most graduates lack an adequate background in biochemistry and molecular biology. This brief chapter will not remedy the deficiency. Instead, it introduces those aspects of biochemical reactor design that can be understood without detailed knowledge of the underlying science. A chemical engineer can make contributions to the field without becoming a biochemist or molecular biologist, just as chemical engineers with sometimes only rudimentary knowledge of organic chemistry made contributions to the petrochemical industry.

Proteins are key ingredients to life and to biochemistry. They are linear polymers of amino acids. The general formula for an amino acid is

where R represents one of twenty different radicals found in nature. The amino and carboxy groups condense and eliminate water to form proteins. When proteins are formed by a living cell, the sequence of amino acids is dictated by the DNA within the cell. The term genetic engineering refers to manipulation of DNA to alter the recipe. Despite the name, genetic engineering is not an engineering discipline, but is a branch of molecular biology similar in spirit to organic synthesis. This chapter is not concerned with genetic engineering as such. Biochemical engineering (or sometimes...