What is meant by aeration? Describe any three methods of providing aeration to the fermentation process. (2+3)

Water-Into-Air
Aerators Cascade AeratorsA cascade aerator (one of the oldest and most common aeratrors) consists of a series of steps that the water flows over (similar to a flowing stream). In all cascade aerators, aeration is accomplished in the splash zones. Splash zones are created by placing blocks across the incline. (They are the oldest and most common type of aerators.) Cascade aerators can be used to oxidize iron and to partially reduce dissolved gases.

Cone Aerators
Cone aerators are used primarily to oxidize iron and manganese from the ferrous state to the ferric state prior to filtration. The design of the aerator is similar to the cascade type, with the water being pumped to the top of the cones and then being allowed to cascade down through the aerator.

Slat and Coke Aerators
Slat and coke trays are similar to the cascade and cone aerators. They usually consist of three-to-five stacked trays, which have spaced wooden slats in them. The trays are then filled with fist-sized pieces of coke, rock, ceramic balls, limestone, or other materials. The primary purpose of the materials is providing additional surface contact area between the air and water.

Draft Aerators
Draft aerators are similar to other water-into-air aerators, except that the air is induced by a blower. There are two basic type of draft aerators. One has external blowers mounted at the bottom of the tower to induce air from the bottom of the tower. Water is pumped to the top and allowed to cascade down through the rising air. The other, an induced-draft aerator, has a top-mounted blower forcing air from bottom vents up through the unit to the top. Both types are effective in oxidizing iron and manganese before filtration.

How foaming is produced in the fermentation media? Explain at least two different methods used to control foaming. (1+4)

Fermentation, chemical process by which molecules such as glucose are broken down anaerobically. More broadly, fermentation is the foaming that occurs during the manufacture of wine and beer, a process at least 10,000 years old. The frothing results from the evolution of carbon dioxide gas, though this was not recognized until the 17th century. French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur in the 19th century used the term fermentation in a narrow sense to describe the changes brought about by yeasts and other microorganisms growing in the absence of air (anaerobically); he also recognized that ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide are not the only products of fermentation.

Anaerobic breakdown of molecules
In the 1920s it was discovered that, in the absence of air, extracts of muscle catalyze the formation of lactate from glucose and that the same intermediate compounds formed in the fermentation of grain are produced by muscle. An important generalization thus emerged: that fermentation reactions are not peculiar to the action of yeast but also occur in many other instances of glucose utilization.

Glycolysis, the breakdown of sugar, was originally defined about 1930 as the metabolism of sugar into lactate. It can be further defined as that form of fermentation, characteristic of cells in general, in which the six-carbon sugar glucose is broken down into two molecules of the three-carbon organic acid, pyruvic acid (the nonionized form of pyruvate), coupled with the transfer of chemical energy to the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). The pyruvate may then be oxidized, in the presence of oxygen, through the tricarboxylic acid cycle, or in the absence of oxygen, be reduced to lactic acid, alcohol, or other products. The sequence from glucose to pyruvate is often called the Embden–Meyerhof pathway, named after two German biochemists who in the late 1920s and ’30s postulated and analyzed experimentally the critical steps in that series of reactions.
The generation of pyruvate through the process of glycolysis is the first step in fermentation.
The generation of pyruvate through the process of glycolysis is the first step in fermentation.

The term fermentation now denotes the enzyme-catalyzed, energy-yielding pathway in cells involving the anaerobic breakdown of molecules such as glucose. In most cells the enzymes occur in the soluble portion of the cytoplasm. The reactions leading to the formation of ATP and pyruvate thus are common to sugar transformation in muscle, yeasts, some bacteria, and plants.

Industrial fermentation

Industrial fermentation processes begin with suitable microorganisms and specified conditions, such as careful adjustment of nutrient concentration. The products are of many types: alcohol, glycerol, and carbon dioxide from yeast fermentation of various sugars; butyl alcohol, acetone, lactic acid, monosodium glutamate, and acetic acid from various bacteria; and citric acid, gluconic acid, and small amounts of antibiotics, vitamin B12, and riboflavin (vitamin B2) from mold fermentation. Ethyl alcohol produced via the fermentation of starch or sugar is an important source of liquid biofuel.

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