Disintegration of microorganisms.

The most common methods for the large-scale disintegration of microorganisms are high-pressure homogenization and wet milling. The most-used homogenizer is produced by Manton Gaulin and the common ball mill is the Dyno-Mill. Other manufacturers are now producing similar equipment (e.g., Rannie homogenizers and Netzsch ball mills). However, only relatively limited information on these systems has been published so far. An additional system that might become available for large-scale disintegration is microfluidization. When coming to choose optimal equipment and conditions for cell disintegration, it might be useful to consider some relevant topics that were compiled by the Retsch company for particle disruption and are presented, with modification, in Table XIII. Obviously, the importance of the above points will vary in different processes, but all of them should be considered in any biotechnological large-scale application. It is important to realize that although the mechanical disintegration methods are of general use, it is essential to define the optimal disintegration conditions for each microorganism and/or product. As a starting point, the published data for a similar product should be consulted. This should be followed by laboratory-scale experiments carried out with equipment and conditions that can be easily scaled up.