Use of hydrodynamic cavitation for large scale microbial cell disruption

A variety of disruption techniques are available for the release of intracellular proteins. Analysis of present day equipment in terms of possible cavitating conditions indicates that, to get efficient disruption of cells, the equipment must operate very near or below the cavitation inception number. A simple set-up has been described which generates cavitating flow. The effect of various parameters such as discharge pressure, and the number of passes through the cavitating zone were studied. Also, the effect of cell type, growth stage of cell and cell concentration on the cell disruption were investigated. The effect of these cavitating conditions on the activity of the macromolecules was also studied. The energy efficiency of the hydrodynamic cavitation was compared with that of established techniques such as ultrasonication and mixer-blender methods. It was observed that the hydrodynamic cavitation set-up described is almost an order of magnitude more energy efficient than the established techniques.