Laboratory for process engineering and technical microbiology



Practical and application-oriented


Teaching

In the current semester, various laboratory exercises for BTNR students (4th and 6th semester). In addition, students are supervised during the practical phase and for their final theses.

The individual laboratory topics are:

Process engineering internship - the basics of process engineering are taught during this internship. For this purpose, the students have the opportunity to carry out comprehensive experiments on the topics of conveying liquids, heat transfer, pervaporation, crystallisation, evaporation, sieve analysis, rectification and extraction (solid-liquid and liquid-liquid) on experimental plants in the laboratory themselves and to analyse their products. Particular attention is paid to carrying out experiments in a practical manner and to addressing everyday problems.

Internship in Technical Microbiology – The focus of this internship unit is the behaviour of microorganisms and enzymes. For this purpose, the students are familiarised with the techniques of a fermenter in order to open up corresponding areas of application in the internship. Furthermore, experiments with free and immobilised lactase for the production of lactose-free milk take place. Another topic is waste water analysis. To illustrate the processes within a sewage treatment plant, the students determine the BOD values of various municipal waste water.

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting techniques

Fermentation

With the help of microorganisms, enzymes are produced in a laboratory fermenter under defined conditions and subsequently detected. In addition, various stirrer geometries are tested on the fermenter and experiments on the subject of oxygen transfer are carried out.

Pervaporation

Pervaporation is an innovative membrane separation process that is used, for example, in the dehydration of alcohols or in wastewater treatment. In this process, certain molecules diffuse into a selectively separating membrane and are removed on the permeate side under vacuum.

Crystallisation

By means of vacuum evaporation crystallisation, the students produce their own salt crystals in the internship. After drying, these crystals are examined with a sieve machine and a particle measuring device with regard to their grain size distribution in relation to various reference samples. In addition, microscopy is used to assess the morphological properties.

Equipment

Refractometer Abbemat 200, Anton Paar

Photometer PhotoLab 6600, WTW

Screen separator AS 200 digital, Retsch

Reflectometer RQflex plus, Merck

Freeze-drying Alpha 1-4, Christ

Density and sound meter DAS 5000, Anton Paar

Particle measuring device LS 13320, Beckmann Coulter

Oxygen, PH, conductivity measuring probe S213, Mettler Toledo

Microscope Trinocular BA-3120E with camera and tablet, Motic

5-l fermenter Biostat B2, Sartorius

OxiTop system for BOD determination, WTW

Clean bench LaminAir TL 2448, Heraeus

Shaking machine KS 4000i control, IKA

Laboratory compressor Bambi Air

Autoclave 3870 ELV, Systec

Drying oven

Analytical balance Entris 224l-1S, Sartorius

Thermostat cabinet, ORI waste water technology

Deionised water system

 

Impressions

The team