S20: Nano dosing in bioreactor technology: overview and technical aspects

Tuesday, November 8, 2011: 10:00 AM
Islands Ballroom G-J (Marriott Marco Island)
Manfred Schär1, Stefan Berger2 and Karl-Heinz Selbmann1, (1)Institut für Drucktechnologie, Berner Fachhochschule, Burgdorf, Switzerland, (2)ReseaChem GmbH, Burgdorf, Switzerland
Dosing with exact and variable feed rates are of importance in modern bioprocesses design. For bigger reactor volumes this can be done with an installation of balances and pumps with good accuracy and for reasonable price. In process development with miniaturized and parallel operated stirred tank bioreactors there are limitations in the use of balances and pumps regarding the accuracy as well as in price and the installation itself.  But for high-throughput process development an exact scale-down of dosing strategies is beside pH and dO control highly desired.

A laboratory prototype of a new dosing unit for flows <10 μL/hour is beeing designed to fulfill this needs. With the integrated MFC the flow can be controlled without balances. Therewith in small scale bioreactors an accurate and exact feed strategy can be implemented in an easy way. Complex installations with balances and micro pumps or robot systems are no longer needed.