Enhanced wave bioreactor design for highly aerobic fermentation processes

生物反应器是在生物过程中用于生产各种有价值的生物产品的装置，如药品、食品成分、可生物降解的塑料材料和清洁的运输燃料。生物反应器有很多种。几年前，一种新型的生物反应器设计被引入，用于从动物细胞培养物中提取治疗药物。这些培养物所需的曝气是通过在放置在塑料袋中的培养物的摇动运动中在其表面产生波浪来获得的。这些所谓的“波浪生物反应器”与传统的基于机械搅拌钢槽装置的生物反应器相比具有成本效益。然而，它们的应用仅限于低水平曝气混合的情况。本研究的目标之一是修改通用波浪生物反应器的设计，使其能够用于需要更高曝气混合能力的微生物发酵过程。

Bioreactors are devices used in bioprocesses to produce a variety of valuable biological products such as pharmaceuticals, food ingredients, biodegradable plastic materials and clean transportation fuels. There are many types of bioreactors. A few years ago, a new type of bioreactor design was introduced for the production of therapeutics derived from animal-cell cultures. The required aeration for these cultures is obtained by creating waves at the surfaces of the culture by a rocking motion of it placed in a plastic bag. These so-called “wave bioreactors” are cost-effective compared to the traditional ones based on mechanically-stirred steel-tank devices for those applications. However their applications are limited to cases for low levels of aeration-mixing. One of the objectives of this research is to modify the generic wave bioreactor design to allow its use in microbial fermentation processes which require higher aeration-mixing capabilities.