Redesigning bioreactors for sustainable bio-based manufacturing

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Bio-based manufacturing through the use of microorganisms offers exciting potential for the production of valuable chemicals and materials as an alternative to fossil fuel based equivalents for more sustainable chemical manufacturing.Bioreactors are an important component of any bio-based chemical production process. However, available bioreactors have been developed to serve the biopharmaceutical industry, producing high-value, low-volume products, with high R&D budgets required for process development and scaling.Existing bioreactors produce low yields and are difficult to scale. This results in resource intensive, costly processes that are difficult and time consuming (5-10 years) to commercialise for bio-based chemical production that cannot compete with petroleum derived equivalents.Sterling Bio Machines aim to revisit the bioreactor design from a first principles approach and redesign for the needs of sustainable bio-based manufacturing. Our novel bioreactor concept separates the functions required for optimum processing in a bioreactor environment to be controlled independently, providing superior control over conditions across the bioreactor volume, at all scales, enabling rapid process development from lab to commercial production scale.In collaboration with the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI), CFD modelling will be used to explore the concept by simulating a typical aerobic fermentation process VS a standard stir tank bioreactor to demonstrate the benefits for sustainable bio-based manufacturing using microorganisms.