Enhanced wave bioreactor design for highly aerobic fermentation processes

生物反应器是用于生物过程的装置，用于生产各种有价值的生物制品，如药品、食品配料、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类型。几年前，一种新型的生物反应器设计被引入，用于生产来自动物细胞培养的治疗药物。这些培养物所需的通气量是通过在放在塑料袋中的培养物摇摆运动在培养物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式钢槽设备的生物反应器相比，成本效益更高。然而，它们的应用仅限于低曝气-混合水平的情况。这项研究的目标之一是修改普通波式生物反应器的设计，使其能够用于对曝气混合能力要求更高的微生物发酵过程。

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.