We all know about the history of penicillin production and the role of process engineering in the commercial production of penicillin. Several methods and techniques were developed or implemented to increase the penicillin titer. Some researchers, like Pirt, Pitt, Righelato, etc., used continuous cultures to understand the physiological aspects of the filamentous fungi of Trichoderma and Penicillium species. The available information shows that the constant culture system is meant for homogenous systems and unsuitable for non-homogenous like filamentous fungi due to their dimorphic nature (pellet phase or dispersed phase). Filamentous fungi are known for their ability to change their morphology subjected to the culture and reaction conditions, affecting metabolite production.
My query is regarding the same problem. I am working on secondary metabolite production from Trichoderma fungus, and to understand the physiological aspects, I opt for a continuous system. I tried to replicate the papers on fungal chemostats and penicillin production for my work. Reports from Pirt and their colleagues showed a way to operate and handle fungal growth in a continuous system. But when doing the same, one major problem is the cell accumulation inside the reaction during the Continuous mode. The chemostat tube starts behaving as a filter, as the cell recycle system works. Due to cell accumulation, the output-specific growth rate is lower than the specific growth rate inside the reactor. So, the chemostat mode does not hold in my case. To avoid the problem some researchers recommended to use overflow weir system in the reactors.
I want to know the best way to run the fungal chemostat without cell accumulation, or should I move on to the fed-batch mode of cultivation? Can anyone guide or teach me how to operate a chemostat or fed batch for fungal cultures? Let me know if you need more information regarding this. If I am supposed to use overflow weir system what should be the design to avoid any contamination or aggregation inside the system?
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