Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
CO
2
H
2
O
CO
2
H
2
O
O
2
O
2
Animals
Animals
Plants
Plants
O
2
O
2
Microorganisms
Microorganisms
Fossils
Fossils
FIGURE 1.1
The natural biological processes.
The reactor is the heart of any chemical and/or biochemical processes. With reactors,
bioprocesses turn inexpensive sustainably renewable chemicals, such as carbohydrates,
into valuable ones that humans need. As such, bioprocesses are chemical processes
that use biological substrates and/or catalysts. While not limited to such, we tend to
refer to bioprocesses as 1) biologically converting inexpensive “chemicals” or materials
into valuable chemicals or materials and 2) manipulating biological organisms to serve
as “catalyst” for conversion or production of products that human need. Bioprocess engi-
neers are the only people technically trained to understand, design, and efficiently
handle bioreactors. Bioprocess engineering ensures that a favorable sustainable state or
predictable outcome of a bioprocess is achieved. This is equivalent to saying that bio-
process engineers are engineers with, differentiating from other engineers, training in
biological sciences, especially quantitative and analytical biological sciences and green
chemistry.
If one thinks of science as a dream, engineering is making the dream a reality. The
maturing of Chemical Engineering to a major discipline and as one of the very few well-
defined disciplines in the 1950s has led to the ease in the mass production of commodity
chemicals and completely changed the economics or value structure of materials and chem-
icals, thanks to the vastly available what were then “waste” and “toxic” materials: fossil
resources. Food and materials can be manufactured from the cheap fossil materials. Our
living standards improved significantly. Today, chemical reactors and chemical processes
are not built by trial-and-error but by design. The performance of a chemical reactor can be
predicted, not just found to happen that way; the differences between large and small reac-
tors are largely solved. Once a dream for the visional pioneers, it can now be achieved at ease.
Fossil chemical and energy sources have provided much of our needs for advancing and
maintaining the living standards of today. With the dwindling of fossil resources, we are
facing yet another value structure change. The dream has been shifted to realizing a society
that is built upon renewable and sustainable resources. Fossil sources will no longer be abun-
dant for human use. Sustainability becomes the primary concern. Who is going to make this
dream come true?
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