Energy requirements for disruption of microbial cells by pulsed electric field treatment have been claimed to be around 54MJm−3 of material treated (de Boer et al., 2012), nearly 50% higher than the energy required for ultrasonic disruption of cells, but quite low compared to the energy requirements for cell disruption in bead mills and high pressure homogenizers (Chisti and Moo-Young, 1986).