Fermentation: Difference between revisions
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===Food preservation=== | ===Food preservation=== | ||
Fermentation will be used to preserve different food sources for longer term storage. Fermentation acts to preserve food by converting universal energy source sugars to fermentation products which cannot be used by all microorganisms. Secondly the fermentation products create an environment that is not conducive to other microorganisms, mainly by lowering the pH. The human gut flora contains many of the same microorganisms used in fermentative food preservation and consumption of fermented foods can have a high impact in improving digestive health and function. | Fermentation will be used to preserve different food sources for longer term storage. Fermentation acts to preserve food by converting universal energy source sugars to fermentation products which cannot be used by all microorganisms. Secondly the fermentation products create an environment that is not conducive to other microorganisms, mainly by lowering the pH. The human gut flora contains many of the same microorganisms used in fermentative food preservation and consumption of fermented foods can have a high impact in improving digestive health and function. | ||
Examples | Examples | ||
*Cheese | *Cheese | ||
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===Chemical Engineering=== | ===Chemical Engineering=== | ||
Fermentation products include small organic molecules with chemical functional groups that are useful for chemical engineering. Fermentation for chemical production has been commercialized and showed promise in the early 1900s before the refinement of the petrochemical industry. | Fermentation products include small organic molecules with chemical functional groups that are useful for chemical engineering. Fermentation for chemical production has been commercialized and showed promise in the early 1900s before the refinement of the petrochemical industry. | ||
Examples | Examples | ||
*Ethanol | *Ethanol | ||
Revision as of 13:54, 8 July 2012
Fermentation is a metabolic process where an organisms uses as alternative to oxygen as a final electron acceptor in order to gain energy. Often the same molecule from which high energy electrons were harvested ultimately accepts the lower energy electron in a different molecular configuration, an example is the fermentation of glucose to ethanol. Fermentation by microorganisms has been mastered by humans for millennia, first for food preservation and more modernly as a source of chemicals.
OSE context
Fermentation is a process that must be conducted free from air and atmospheric oxygen, and can be conducted either submerged in water (liquid state) or in a seal container. Depending upon the starting material and the sugars it contains and the product desired a variety of microorganisms can be selected.
Food preservation
Fermentation will be used to preserve different food sources for longer term storage. Fermentation acts to preserve food by converting universal energy source sugars to fermentation products which cannot be used by all microorganisms. Secondly the fermentation products create an environment that is not conducive to other microorganisms, mainly by lowering the pH. The human gut flora contains many of the same microorganisms used in fermentative food preservation and consumption of fermented foods can have a high impact in improving digestive health and function.
Examples
- Cheese
- Yogurt
- Kefir
- Sauerkraut
- Kimchi
- Koombacha
- Beer
- Silage for livestock
Chemical Engineering
Fermentation products include small organic molecules with chemical functional groups that are useful for chemical engineering. Fermentation for chemical production has been commercialized and showed promise in the early 1900s before the refinement of the petrochemical industry.
Examples
- Ethanol
- Butanol
- Acetone
- Lactic acid