Fermentation Engineering
Fermentation engineering
Japanese: 発酵工学
The engineering discipline that designs, controls, and optimizes fermentation processes. From bioreactor design to large-scale cultivation, it handles industrial applications.
Fermentation engineering controls and optimizes microbial activity at industrial scale. It manages bioreactor design, culture medium optimization, and control of temperature, pH, and dissolved oxygen. Amino acids, organic acids, antibiotics, biofuels—countless products would not exist without fermentation engineering. If traditional brewing is a technology of dialogue with microorganisms, fermentation engineering is a technology of deploying microbial power in society. The two are not opposed but exist on a continuous spectrum. Fermentation engineering knowledge extends beyond food into pharmaceuticals and chemicals. Harnessing tiny organisms' power for society's great challenges—this potential remains largely untapped.