Monitoring and analysing fermentation processes

Fermentation is defined as any of many anaerobic biochemical reactions in which an enzyme (or several enzymes produced by a microorganism) catalyses the conversion of one substance into another.

A very well-known example is the conversion (using yeast) of sugars to alcohol or acetic acid with the evolution of carbon dioxide.

Fermentation processes include:

• Fermentation (food), the use of fermentation in food preparation
• Fermentation (biochemistry), a metabolic process whereby electrons released from nutrients are ultimately transferred to molecules obtained from the breakdown of those same nutrients
• Fermentation (wine), the process of fermentation used in winemaking
• Alcoholic Fermentation, the process of fermentation used in brewing beer
• Ethanol fermentation, the production of ethanol for use in food, alcoholic beverage, fuel and industry
• Industrial fermentation, the breakdown and re-assembly of biochemicals for industry, often in aerobic growth conditions
• Fermentative hydrogen production, the fermentative conversion of organic substrate to biohydrogen manifested by a diverse group of bacteria
• Tea processing, the term used in the tea industry for the aerobic treatment of tea leaves to break down certain unwanted chemicals and modify others to develop the flavor of the tea

The Fluidscope™ technology is used to analyse cell cultures in a number of fermentation processes. Results include a number of morphological parameters such as quantity, form, granularity etc. The Fluidscope technology is also used to follow the morphological changes in cells over time.