Hydrosome Labs on how ultrafine bubbles boost precision fermentation

27 May 2024 --- With precision fermentation increasingly used for sustainably producing cosmetic ingredients, Personal Care Insights sits down with Bob Jacobs, president of Hydrosome Labs, to explore the technology behind their ultrafine bubbles. 

Jacobs describes how the technology doubles precision fermentation yields and cuts production time. We also discuss the benefits of ultrafine bubbles in enhancing nutrient delivery to cells, the sustainability advantage and the impact on the US$200 billion biomanufacturing industry.

How does your technology achieve double the precision fermentation yields and reduce production time by 25%?
Jacobs: Our technology is based on the emerging field of ultrafine bubbles. Our process infuses these bubbles, with reproducible size and concentration characteristics, directly into the growth media used in precision fermentation. Those bubbles improve the delivery of nutrients and gases to the cells, improving the speed and yield of fermentations.

How do ultrafine bubbles improve the efficiency of delivering active ingredients to cells?
Jacobs: Ultrafine bubbles have several characteristics that make them great delivery vehicles for nutrients and active ingredients to cells. Compared to the bubbles we typically see in our sparking water, ultrafine bubbles have significantly more surface area to interact with cells due to their small size and high concentration in solution. In addition, ultrafine bubbles are not buoyant because their small size makesWatch our video interview with Jabobs.them behave more like particles in solution and less like the bubbles we see in a glass of Champagne. Finally, the surface of the ultrafine bubble attracts nutrients, which are then carried along with the bubble and the gases inside to the surface of cells, concentrating their payload there for cells to use.

What are the sustainability benefits of using Hydrosome H2O in fermentation processes?
Jacobs: By reducing fermentation times and increasing yields, we are able to reduce the total energy used in fermentation processes. Our process uses very little electricity to produce the bubbles — around US$0.01 per 100 gallons of media or water processed. This is quite small compared to the energy required to run an overall fermentation process, so we are helping companies reduce their carbon footprint by improving the speed and efficiency of their processes. In addition, this process does not require any additional chemicals. We are leveraging fluid dynamics principles to create these ultrafine bubbles using just liquid and gas, nothing else.

How do you see the innovation impacting the biomanufacturing industry?
Jacobs: Besides energy savings, we help precision fermentation companies dramatically improve their yields, reduce overall costs and become more competitive with legacy industries. 

Despite the substantial investments in strain engineering and extraction methodologies to enhance yields, the fermentation process has remained largely stagnant, devoid of significant advancements for decades. Our technology presents a new opportunity to circumvent this longstanding bottleneck by directly improving the efficiency of the fermentation process. This approach represents a transformative shortcut, enabling substantial improvements in overall productivity without requiring extensive strain engineering or extraction method optimization.

Finally, our technology can help open up new capacity for areas of the industry struggling to increase output due to skyrocketing demand. Our systems can be easily retrofitted to existing tanks, expanding production capacity with minimal capital investment.

By Venya Patel