There is an increasing interest in large‐scale production of tailored chemicals from renewable resources. Such production typically involves a fermentation step where microorganisms produce the chemical of interest. The extraction of the chemical from the fermentation broth usually necessitates the removal of the microorganisms in a prior process step. In biomedical applications, Crown Machinery’s biomaterial series disc stack centrifuge of hermetic design are known to be well‐suited for this removal step.
The agglomeration can be achieved by the addition of coagulants or flocculants to the fermentation broth before the separation. For this technique to be successful the agglomerates cannot break apart due to, e.g., shear forces in the inlet of the centrifuge. If single organisms break loose from the agglomerates, they are likely to pass through unseparated.
