Production Technique

In order for a microbe to produce enzymes with its maximum efficiency, Suntaq production specialists develop corresponding production process and standard operation procedures from our pilot plant to real large-scale production.

When our biotechnologist develops a microbe that can efficiently produce the desired enzyme, the production technology needs to be developed for such strain in order to produce enzyme in large scale and big volume. For this purpose, our production specialists need to carry out the development on the whole production process in very small scale production facilities in our pilot plant. The whole process in pilot plant goes through fermentation, filtration, concentration, formulation or drying system. These small facilities are very efficient and helpful to give ideas and instructions for standardization of the operation procedures for production of the target enzyme. 

For instance, in the smaller scale fermentation (5, 10 or 25L), our specialists can easily found out what types of fermentation media, such as starch, soy, wheat bran and etc., shall be used, what temperature and pH, and what the oxygen ventilation volume need to be controlled, so as to achieve the optimal capacity of enzyme. 

When fermentation finishes, the enzyme need to be separated from the rest microbes and fermentation media through press filtration process. The press filtration can separate particles by different sizes; enzyme and water molecules are separated from microbes and other fermentation media since they are much smaller. 

However, the liquid enzyme separated from press filtration usually cannot be directly commercialized because it contains too much water generated from fermentation. To get a more concentrated enzyme, the enzyme liquid need go through ultra filtration process. The millipore on the ultra filtration membrane is bigger than water molecule but smaller than enzyme molecule, so that it can purify enzyme to be more concentrated. 

The concentrated enzyme can be further standardized and formulated in liquid final product, or go through drying system for solid final product. Liquid products are usually formulated with stabilizers and preservatives. The enzyme stability are mainly affected by stabilizers and preservatives.  Our QA department will try different formulations of stabilizer and preservatives to achieve a optimal stability for liquid enzymes. The liquid enzyme is stored at refrigerator, room temperature and water bath at 37 C for certain period of time, and then to be analyzed. The optimal stability requires many stability test upon different formulations.

When our specialists have consolidated data and results in the pilot plant, the strain will be used in large scale facilities for trial production. Basically it is just the repeat of pilot production, but our production usually does several trial production to eventually confirm all the procedures of the entire production technology.