Bioreactors are vessels or tanks in which whole cells or cell-free

enzymes transform raw materials into biochemical products

and/or less undesirable by-products.
The microbial cell itself is a miniature bioreactor; other examples
include shake flasks, Petri dishes, and industrial fermentors.
The term fermentor is used by bioreactors as a synonym.
• The bioreactor working principle involves creating an environment
that is conducive to the growth of the cells or organisms being
cultured.
• For example, if we are trying to produce a particular protein using
bacteria, it would need to provide them with the right nutrients, such
as glucose and amino acids
• Organisms or biochemically active substances growing in bioreactors
may be submerged in liquid medium or may be anchored to the
surface of a solid medium.
• Submerged cultures may be suspended or immobilized.
• Suspension bioreactors may support a wider variety of organisms,
since special attachment surfaces are not needed, and can operate at
a much larger scale than immobilized cultures
• However, in a continuously operated process the organisms will be
removed from the reactor with the effluent.
• Immobilization is a general term describing a wide variety of methods
for cell or particle attachment or entrapment
• Remaining part of the lecture which was delivered on white board
The key difference is that upstream bioprocessing involves
screening and identification of microorganisms, media
preparation, multiplication of microbes inside bioreactors,

while downstream bioprocessing deals with extraction,

purification and filtration of the resulting product.
• Chemostatic principle
• Chemostats can be used to accurately quantify the effect of nutrient
concentration on differences in growth rates (i.e. fitness) between
different genetic backgrounds
• A bubble column reactor is a chemical reactor that belongs to the
general class of multiphase reactors, which consists of three main
categories: trickle bed reactor (fixed or packed bed), fluidized bed
reactor, and bubble column reactor.
• A bubble column reactor is basically a cylindrical vessel with a gas
distributor at the bottom.
• The gas is sparged (moistened by sprinkling with water) in the form of
bubbles into either a liquid phase or a liquid–solid suspension.
• These reactors are generally referred to as slurry (a semi-
liquid mixture) bubble column reactors when a solid phase exists.
• In its simplest configuration, a bubble column consists of a vertically-
arranged cylindrical column filled with liquid. The gas flow rate is
introduced at the bottom of the column through a gas distributor.
• The gas is supplied in the form of bubbles to either a liquid phase or a
liquid-solid suspension. In this case, the solid particle size (typically
a catalyst) ranges from 5 to 100 μm. These three-phase reactors are
referred to us as slurry bubble columns.
Advantages
• Bubble columns offer a significant number of advantages: excellent
heat and mass transfer between the phases, low operating and
maintenance costs due to the absence of moving parts, solids can be
handled without any erosion or plugging problems, slow reactions
can be carried out due to the high liquid residence time, reasonable
control of temperature when strongly exothermic reactions take place.
• However, the back-mixing of the liquid phase (the result of buoyancy-
driven recirculation) is a limitation for bubble columns: excessive back-
mixing can limit the conversion efficiency. The reactor may be equipped
with internals, or sieve plates, to overcome the back-mixing problem
with an inevitable modification in the fluid dynamics.
USES

• Bubble columns are extensively used in many industrial applications.

They are of considerable interest in chemical processes involving
reactions like oxidation, chlorination, alkylation, polymerization,
and hydrogenation, as well as in the production of synthetic fuels via
a gas conversion process in biochemical processes such
as fermentation and biological wastewater treatment
Main Applications of bubble column
bioreactors
Process Reactants Main products

Oxidation Ethilenen-paraffins, cyclohexane Acetaldehyde, secondary alcohols,

adipic acid

Chlorination Aliphatic hydrocarbons, Chlorinated compaunds

aromatic hydrocarbons
Alkylation Methanol Acetic acid
Hydroformylation Olefins Aldehydes, alcohols

Carbonylations Methanol, ethanol Acetic acid, acitic anhydride,

propionic acid

Hydrogenation Unsaturated fatty acids, glucose, Saturated fatty acids, sorbitol,

nitroaromatics ammines
Gas to liquid fuels (Fischer-Tropsch) Syngas Liquid fuels
Coal liquification Coal Liquid fuels
Desulferization Petroleum fractions Desulferize fractions
Aerobic bio-chemical processes Molasses Ethanol
BUBBLE COLUMN BIOREACTORS