Large Scale Bioreactors – Insight Into a Black Box
In bioprocess engineering, the production of antibody medicine by means of mammalian cell cultures is of great relevance. To ensure optimal cell growth conditions for high product qualities and efficiencies, the cells must continuously be supplied with nutrients and dissolved oxygen. During the entire process, a homogeneous mixing behavior have to be guaranteed, which can be achieved by applying bioreactors like stirred tank reactors. For a reliable design and scale up of the bioreactor, a profound understanding of hydrodynamics and mass transfer is required.
At the Institute of Multiphase Flows (IMS) at the Hamburg University of Technology various studies have been performed to study the influence of different operation conditions as well as stirrer geometries on mass transfer performance, power input and mixing efficiency on laboratory scale (3 L) over pilot-scale (30 L) to industrial scale (15,000 L). This work gives deep insights into the hydrodynamic behavior and a characterization of an industrial scale aerated stirred tank reactor.
