Thermodynamics of microbial growth and its implications for process design

Several different approaches have been used in an attempt to define and analyse the thermodynamics of microbial growth in bioreactor culture. While thermodynamic theory has been developed sufficiently to enable satisfactory prediction of biomass and catabolic-product yield, prediction of non-catabolicproduct yield and growth kinetics has proven less successful. Further research in this area is required to develop models that would be useful in process design and optimization.