MIDLANDS STATE UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED BIOSCIENCES AND

BIOTECHNOLOGY

NAME: ISHUMAEL TAMBULA

REG NO: R193735T

LEVEL: 4:1

M.O.E: CONVENTIONAL

LECTURER: Ms MGUNI

MODULE: ABB 423

ASSIGNMENT NO. 1
The design and functional characteristics of the packed bed, tray and airlift bioreactors

Packed bed bioreactor

According to (Pörtner and Faschian, 2019), Packed bed bioreactors, also known as Fixed-bed
bioreactors, consist of a mostly cylindrical column containing macroporous carriers, wherein
cells are immobilized. The column is permanently perfused with fresh medium. If required, the
medium can be circulated in a loop. This might be useful if appropriate flow rates and medium

supply rates vary significantly. For small fixed-bed volumes with a height of approximately
10 cm, the medium can be pumped axially through the bed. In this case, at the outlet the oxygen
concentration in the case of aerobic cells, Pörtner. et al (2016) gives mammalian cells as an
example, or the pH in the case of acid-producing anaerobic cells should remain in a
physiological range. Pörtner and Faschian (2019) go on to say that further increase of the length
would result in too low oxygen or pH values in the upper zones of the bed. This can be overcome
by applying a radial medium flow, where the radius determines the length of the oxygen or pH

gradient, not the height of the column. Cell loading is often carried out by simply pumping a cell
suspension through the bed of carriers, and cells are kept under same physiological conditions
for the immobilization Process parameters that have to be optimized during process development
comprise selection of carriers, medium selection, appropriate flow velocity, and long-term
performance, among others. All this information is required to evaluate the overall performance,
e.g., productivity, and to layout the scale-up strategy.

Tray bioreactor

Tray bioreactors tend to be very simple in design, with no forced aeration or mixing for the solid
substrate. Robinson and Nigam (2003) are of the opinion that such reactors are restrictive in the
amount of substrate that can be fermented, as only thin layers can be used, in order to avoid
overheating and to maintain aerobic conditions. The undersides of the trays are perforated to
allow aeration of the solid substrate, with each tray arranged above each other. Temperature and
relative humidity are the only controllable external parameters. Wooden trays were initially used
for soy sauce production in Koji fermentations by Aspergillus oryzae. The use of tray reactors
has remained largely unchanged, with the only engineering advance being the use of more
modern materials such as, plastic and aluminium. This has been successfully used for
lignocellulose fermentation. Ali and Zulkali (2011) add on saying that the temperature of the
fermentation substrate is controlled by circulating warm or cool air as necessary. The relative
humidity can be controlled by passing saturated or dry air through the chamber. The height of the
substrate in the tray can range from 5–15 cm, for laboratory scale of this group of bioreactors
there are several types of equipment used such as petri dishes, jars, plastic bags and Erlenmeyer
flasks, which offer the advantages of simplicity.

Airlift bioreactor

A paper by Sanjogta (2021) says that the airlift reactor is generally used for gas-liquid or gas-
liquid-solid contact devices. It is also known as a tower reactor. It goes on saying a bioreactor
using an airlift system divides the fluid volume into two zones to improve circulation, oxygen
transfer, and equalize forces in the reactor in a two-zone system, only one zone is sparged with
gas. The zone where the gas is sparged is the riser; the zone in which it is not sparged is the
downcomer. Airlift bioreactors are used for aerobic bioprocessing technology so that they can
provide a controlled liquid flow in a recycling system using pumps. This equipment has several
advantages such as its simplicity of design because it doesn’t contain any moving parts or
agitators, its easy sterilization, its low energy requirements, and its low cost.

Prado Barragán et al., (2016) state that airlift bioreactors are tower reactors for large-scale
aerobic cultures where the mixing of the culture broth is done by the inserted gas via an airlift
pump. This pump injects compressed air at the bottom of the discharge pipe, which is immersed
in the liquid. They go on to say that compressed air mixes with the liquid, causing the gas–liquid
mixture to be less dense than the rest of the liquid around it and therefore is displaced upwards
through the discharge pipe by the surrounding liquid of higher density. Solids may be entrained
in the flow and, if small enough to fit through the pipe, will be discharged with the rest of the
flow at a shallower depth or above the surface. The only energy required is provided by
compressed gas, which is prepared by a compressor.
References

Ali, H.K.Q. and Zulkali, M.M.D. (2011) ‘Design Aspects of Bioreactors for Solid-state
Fermentation : A Review’, 25(2), pp. 255–266.

Pörtner R, Faschian R, Goelling D. (2016) ‘Fermentation of lactic acid bacteria: State of the art
and new perspectives. In: Hilterhaus L, Liese A, Kettling U, Antranikian G, editors. Applied
Biocatalysis. From Fundamental Science to Industrial Applications. Weinheim: Wiley-VCH
Verlag GmbH

Pörtner, R. and Faschian, R. (2019) ‘Design and Operation of Fixed-Bed Bioreactors for
Immobilized Bacterial Culture’, in Mishra, M. (ed.) Growing and Handling of Bacterial
Cultures. Rijeka: IntechOpen. doi:10.5772/intechopen.87944.

Prado Barragán, L.A. et al. (2016) ‘Chapter 7 - Fermentative Production Methods’, in

Poltronieri, P. and D’Urso, O.F.B.T.-B. of A.W. and B.-P. (eds). Elsevier, pp. 189–217.
doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-803622-8.00007-0.

Robinson, T. and Nigam, P. (2003) ‘Bioreactor design for protein enrichment of agricultural
residues by solid state fermentation’, (March). doi:10.1016/S1369-703X(02)00132-8.

Sanjogta T., M., (2021) Bioreactor- Definition, Design, Principle, Parts, Types, Applications,
Limitations: Microbe Notes, https://microbenotes.com/bioreactor/ (Accessed 13/06/22)