Specific biochemical reactions and their economical operations are the main advantages of bioreactors. They are widely applied in the industrial sector such as in the food and pharmaceutical industries, in biotechnology and in municipal wastewater treatment plants. The biotechnological fermentation industry in Europe is faced with enormous legal restrictions such as the genetic law, embryonic protection law and so on. The fermentation industry lacks possibility for expansion due to the fact that new installations require new locations with the associated high investment costs. There is a substantial need for compact and cost efficient biological fermentation system.

The intensive scientific efforts of the last 20 years in the genetic optimisation of the micro-organisms and in the classical bio-processes led to a drastically increase in the application of biotechnology in central Europe and to a substantial need for compact and cost effective biological fermentation systems.

The aim of the BIOFERM project is to take the already existing experience with the direct intake of ultrasound in small-scale bio-reactors and transfer into a by-pass ultrasound reactor technology. This new process omits the ultrasound-system installed in bio-reactor. This important step would lead to the possibility to use already existing bioreactors in the fermentation companies such as the food processing and biotechnology industries. With this type of reactor, a direct scale-up is quite possible. Otherwise, the integration of the ultrasound in already existing fermentation reactors would lead to high investment and energy costs. Ultrasound-systems will be coupled with biotechnology fermentation process to prove the already achieved results from ultrasound-activated food processing.