Synthetic resins or natural rubbers -- part of the class 520 ser – Synthetic resins – Compositions to be polymerized by wave energy wherein said...
Patent
1998-05-27
1999-11-23
Nutter, Nathan M.
Synthetic resins or natural rubbers -- part of the class 520 ser
Synthetic resins
Compositions to be polymerized by wave energy wherein said...
522 88, 522 89, 422232, 422233, C08J 314, C12N 1104
Patent
active
059901918
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to a granular carrier for immobilizing microorganism cells and a device for producing said granular carrier, more particularly to a granular carrier for immobilizing microorganism cells, which makes it possible to easily adhere and immobilize microorganism cells onto the surface of a carrier by adding the granular carrier for immobilizing microorganism cells into a microorganism suspension and then activating the microorganism cells, and a device for producing said granular carrier.
BACKGROUND ART
Immobilized microorganisms have been noticed in recent years because they may be used to realize efficient continuous fermentation in a bioreactor.
Many methods, including the entrapment method and physical adsorption method, have been known to date as microorganism immobilizing methods. Immobilization of a microorganism by the entrapment method, however, has a problem in that the cost greatly increases because it requires a complicated operation of wrapping a previously-cultured microorganism suspension in a macromolecular gel.
The physical adsorption method makes it possible to immobilize a microorganism merely by introducing a carrier into a microorganism suspension. Therefore, the method has an advantage in that the operation of entrapping a microorganism performed in the entrapment method is not necessary. Carriers such as activated carbon, porous glass, sellite, chitin, and cellulose are known as carriers used for the physical adsorption method.
However, because surface structures of these carriers are not suitable for attachment of microorganisms, there is a problem in that only a small number of microorganisms are attached, and there is a disadvantage in that it is difficult to cause a flow in a fermenter or bioreactor, depending on the type of carrier, because of its high specific gravity.
It is the first object of the present invention to provide a granular carrier for immobilizing microorganism cells, whose surface structure is suitable for attachment of a microorganism and whose specific gravity ranges between 1.00 and 1.20, and which does not lower the flowability in a fermenter or bioreactor.
Moreover, a device for manufacturing the above granular carrier is disclosed in, for example, the official gazette of Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 1-118529. According to the system disclosed in this official gazette, dripped granular gels are put in a Petri dish so that grains are lined up, and they are irradiated with ultraviolet radiation by a high-pressure mercury lamp while being vibrated.
Though this system realizes irradiation at a certain light intensity, it has a problem in that the production efficiency is very low because continuous production is impossible.
Moreover, the present inventor previously proposed a device for manufacturing grains by moving dripped granular gels by a transparent spiral tube and simultaneously irradiating the gels with active rays (official gazette of Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Sho 60-106836).
The previously proposed system is described below by referring to FIG. 1. This system comprises a tank 18 for storing a liquid composition containing a photo-curable resin, polymerization initiator, and water-soluble polysaccharide capable of gelatinizing, a dripping unit 20 for dripping the liquid composition through a nozzle, and a gelatinizing vessel 22 for storing an aqueous medium containing polyvalent metal ions.
The liquid composition is supplied to the dripping unit 20 from the tank 18 through a transport tube 24. The dripping unit 20 stores a predetermined amount of liquid composition and has a nozzle 30 at the lower position so as to drip the liquid composition from the front end of the nozzle. A droplet of the liquid composition drops into the aqueous medium containing the polyvalent metal ion stored in the gelatinizing vessel 22 and is gelatinized, and, thereafter, is supplied to a light irradiation section 12 through a tube 31 connected to the bottom of the gelatinizing vessel 22.
When a liquid gel descends through
REFERENCES:
patent: 4195129 (1980-03-01), Fukui et al.
patent: 4605622 (1986-08-01), Hasegawa et al.
Hirama Toshirou
Izumida Hitoshi
Kikuta Makoto
Nanishi Kiyoshi
Kansai Paint Co. Ltd.
Nutter Nathan M.
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