After the fermentation process is complete it is necessary to recover the desired end product. The end products are commercially important products and include Antibiotics, enzymes, vitamins, organic acids, amino acids and vaccines. In certain cases for example in Single cell proteins, the microorganism itself is the desired end product for isolation.
The extraction and purification of a biotechnological product from fermentation is called Downstream processing. It is also called as Product recovery.
The stages in downstream processing are:
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Solid-liquid separation
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Release of intracellular products
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Purification
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Formulation
