The vessel in which an industrial microbiology process is carried
out is called a fermentor. In industrial microbiology, the term
fermentation refers to any large-scale microbial process,
whether or not it is, biochemically speaking, a fermentation. The
size of fermentors varies from the small 5- to 10-liter laboratory
scale to the enormous 500,000-liter industrial scale (Figure 15.2).
The size of the fermentor used depends on the process and how
it is operated. A summary of fermentor sizes for some common
microbial fermentations is given in Table 15.2.