This book is based on a 1981 German language edition published by Springer­ Verlag, Vienna, under the title Bioprozesstechnik. Philip Manor has done the translation, for which I am deeply grateful. This book differs from the German edition in many ways besides language. It is substantially enlargened and updated, and examples of computer simula­ tions have been added together with other appendices to make the work both more comprehensive and more practical. This book is the result of over 15 years of experience in teaching and research. It stems from lectures that I began in 1970 at the Technical University of Graz, Austria, and continued at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, 1980; at the Free University of Brussels, 1981; at Chalmers Technical University in G6teborg, Sweden; at the Academy of Sciences in lena, East Germany; at the "Haus der Technik" in Essen, West Germany, 1982; at the Academy of Science in Sofia, Bulgaria; and at the Technical University of Delft, Netherlands, 1986. The main goals of this book are, first, to bridge the gap that always exists between basic principles and applied engineering practice, second, to enhance the integration between biological and physical phenomena, and, third, to contribute to the internal development of the field of biotechnology by describing the process-oriented field of bioprocess technology.