Summary The present work reviews and critically discusses the aspects that influence yeast flocculation, namely the chemical characteristics of the medium (pH and the presence of bivalent ions), fermentation conditions (oxygen, sugars, growth temperature and ethanol concentration) and the expression of specific genes such as FLO1, Lg‐FLO1, FLO5, FLO8, FLO9 and FLO10. In addition, the metabolic control of loss and onset of flocculation is reviewed and updated. Flocculation has been traditionally used in brewing production as an easy and off‐cost cell‐broth separation process. The advantages of using flocculent yeast strains in the production of other alcoholic beverages (wine, cachaça and sparkling wine), in the production of renewal fuels (bio‐ethanol), in modern biotechnology (production of heterologous proteins) and in environmental applications (bioremediation of heavy metals) are highlighted. Finally, the possibility of aggregation of yeast cells in flocs, as an example of social behaviour (a communitarian strategy for long‐time survival or a means of protection against negative environmental conditions), is discussed.

The use of buffers to maintain the pH within a desired range is a very common practice in chemical, biochemical and biological studies.Among them, zwitterionic N-substituted aminosulfonic acids, usually known as Good'sbuffers, although widely used, can complex metals and interact with biological systems. The present work reviews, discusses and updates the metal complexation characteristics of thirty one commercially available buffers. In addition, their impact on biological systems is also presented. The influences of these buffers on the results obtained in biological, biochemical and environmental studies, with special focus on their interaction with metal ions, are highlighted and critically reviewed. Using chemical speciation simulations, based on the current knowledge of the metal-buffer stability constants, a proposal of the most adequate buffer to employ for a given metal ion is presented.