Glossary of Filtration Technologies: B

Babcock test

traditional method of measuring the butterfat content of milk, which may be used for calibrating modern electronic testing devices.

Bacterium

Bacterium is a class of single-cell organisms (plural, bacteria). One member, E. coli, is commonly used in recombinant DNA technology for producing proteins and other chemicals.

Bagasse

Bagasse is the pulp that remains after juice is extracted from sugar cane or similar plants. However, bagasse is typically referred to as the solid material left after processing sugar cane to produce sugar or ethanol. Often burned for power production, but could be made into more ethanol, with cellulosic processing techniques.

Baghouse filter

A baghouse filter is a fabric filter device used to remove particulate air pollutants.

Barrel

A unit of volume measurement typically used for petroleum and its products. 1 barrel = 42 U.S. gallons or 35 British gallons or 159 liters. Note that a UK beer barrel equals 36 UK gallons (163.7 liters) and that a US beer barrel equals 31 US gallons (117.3 liters).

GEA Barr-Rosin

For decades both Barr & Murphy and Rosin Engineering have specialized in thermal process systems for the biodiesel, fuel ethanol, food, chemical and polymer industries. The two companies are now united in the GEA Group as GEA Barr-Rosin and supplies advanced drying and processing systems.

Benzene

An aromatic hydrocarbon which is a colorless, volatile, flammable liquid. Benzene is obtained chiefly from coal tar and is used as a solvent for resins and fats in dye manufacture.

Bioavailability

Bioavailability is a measurement of the speed, percentage and the extent of an active drug in the blood steam and its ability to be active at the target area. Bioavailability is typically used to describe the fraction of an administered drug that reaches the systemic circulation. This is one of the main pharmacokinetic properties of a therapeutically active drugs. When a drug is administered directly into the blood stream the bioavailability is 100 percent. When a medication is administered via other delivery systems such as inhalation or in tablet form, the bioavailability decreases due to incomplete absorption and first-pass effect. The final bioavailability and the delivery form is often the deciding factor for the selection of the process equipment involved. Spray drying for instance is used in the production of inhaled drugs while fluid bed drying / granulation plus tablet compression are the normal process steps in tablet production.

Bio-butanol

Bio-butanol is a bio-fuel that offers a number of advantages over common bio-fuels, including an energy content closer to that of petroleum. Bio-butanol can easily be added to conventional petrol due to low vapor pressure and can be blended at much higher concentrations than traditional bio-ethanol.

Biosensors

Biosensors translate biological variables such as movement, chemical concentration, etc. in to electrical signals. These devices could be miniaturized and used to internally monitor biological systems.

BIO - Biotechnology Industry Organization

In 1993, when there were but a handful of biotechnology drugs on the market and the sequencing of the human genome was pegged for completion somewhere around 2005, two small Washington-based biotechnology trade organizations merged to create the Biotechnology Industry Organization, better known as BIO. One of the founding organizations, the Industrial Biotechnology Association (IBA), primarily represented larger, established companies on Capitol Hill and before federal regulatory agencies; the other, the Association of Biotechnology Companies (ABC), represented emerging companies and universities, and focused on technology transfer issues, meetings and other business development activities.

Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD)

Required amount oxygen load needed for natural process product breakdown (microbial). Measured in PPM
It is used as a measure of the degree of water pollution.

Biodiesel

Produced through a process in which organically derived oils and fats are combined with alcohol (ethanol or methanol) in the presence of a catalyst to form ethyl or methyl ester (transesterification). Biodiesel can be made from soybean or canola oils, animal fats, waste vegetable oils (triglycerides), or microalgae oils. Biodiesel is an alternative to petroleum-based diesel fuel and is made from renewable resources such as vegetable oils or animal fats. Biodiesel is a biodegradable fuel. Biodiesel is used as a component of diesel fuel. In the future it may be used as a replacement for diesel.

Biologics

Biologics are classified by FDA as "products derived from living sources" as opposed to a chemical process. Biological products include bacterial and viral vaccines, human blood products, skin grown for burn victims, gene therapy, etc.

Biomass

Organic non-fossil material of biological origin such as agricultural crops, crop-waste residues, wood, animal, and municipal waste, aquatic plants, and fungal growth as well as wood by-products and agricultural wastes that can be burned to produce energy or converted into a gas and used for fuel. Note that energy produced by combusting renewable biomass materials such as wood. The carbon dioxide emitted from burning biomass will not increase total atmospheric carbon dioxide if this consumption is done on a sustainable basis (i.e., if in a given period of time, re-growth of biomass takes up as much carbon dioxide as is released from biomass combustion). Biomass energy is often suggested as a replacement for fossil fuel combustion which has large greenhouse gas emissions. Applications for membrane filtration in the cellulosic biomass process (to produce ethanol) can be found here.

Biotechnology (biotech)

Technologies that use living cells and/or biological molecules to solve problems and make useful products. In other words, biotechnology is a collection of technologies/techniques that capitalize on the cells attributes, such as their manufacturing capabilities, and biological molecules, such as DNA and proteins to work for us. Biotechnology will help improve our ability to customize therapies based on individual genomics and prevent, diagnose, and treat all types of diseases rather than rely on rescue therapy and provide breakthroughs in agricultural production and food safety.

BOD

BOD - biological (biochemical) oxygen demand is a measure of the amount of oxygen consumed in the biological processes that break down organic matter in water or wastewater (while stabilizing the decomposable organic matter under aerobic conditions). BOD is used as an indirect measure of the concentration of biologically degradable material present in organic wastes as organic matter serves as food for the bacteria in decomposition and energy results from this oxidation.

Boundary Layer

The boundary layer is a very thin layer of fluid flowing over the membrane surface. The molecules directly touching the membrane surface are virtually motionless. At the top of the boundary layer, the molecules move at the same speed as the molecules outside the boundary layer. This speed is called the free-stream velocity.

Brix Degrees (°Bx)

A measurement of the mass ratio of dissolved sucrose to water in a liquid.

BTL

BTL or biomass-to-liquid is a multi-step process which converts biomass into liquid bio-fuels. BTL is also referred to as second generation biodiesel production. There are many different methods of BTL, but many processes include hydrogenation, pyrolysis and/or biodiesel from natural gas, syngas, gasified coal or biomass. Note that Second generation biofuels typically refers to to biofuels produced from biomass or non-edible feedstocks.

Bypass Flow Restrictor

A device to direct feed material through the membrane elements retentate flow channels while allowing a controlled amount to bypass these channels.

By-product

A by-product is an incidental or secondary product made in the manufacture of a primary product. For example, a by-product of cheese production is whey which through membrane filtration can be fractioned into valuable products such as whey protein concentrate and whey protein isolate; a by-products of biodiesel production is glycerine and a by-product of bioethanol production is DDGS (for which our sister-company GEA Barr-Rosin supply specialized drying systems).

GEA Filtration - the membrane filtration specialist.