Media Formulation

• Thorough analysis is essential to establish a suitable medium for an individual fermentation process

• All most all microbes need water, energy sources, sources of carbon and nitrogen, certain mineral elements and perhaps vitamins plus oxygen if microbes are aerobic

• It is easy to devise a medium containing pure compounds on a small scale but this medium may be unsuitable for use in a large scale fermentation processes

• Following are the criteria imperative to  consider while designing a medium for large scale production

~ The medium should support the maximum production of yield of product per gram of substrate used

~ It should promote maximum accumulation of  the product

~The maximum rate of product formation should be achieved 

~There should be minimum production of unwanted products

~Constituents of the medium should be available throughout the year at cheaper rate and nearby area

~There should not be any undesirable changes in the consistency of the medium during preparation of media and after sterilization

~There should not be any difficulty in the operations like aeration, agitation during the production process and downstream operations like detection, isolation, extraction, purification and waste treatment