Oxygen mass transfer and scale-up studies in baffled roller bioreactors

Oxygen mass transfer was studied in conventional, bead mill and baffled roller bioreactors. Using central composite rotational design, impacts of size, rotation speed and working volume on the oxygen mass transfer were evaluated. Baffled roller bioreactor outperformed its conventional and bead mill counterparts, with the highest kLa obtained in these configurations being 0.58, 0.19, 0.41 min−1, respectively. Performances of the bead mill and baffled roller bioreactor were only comparable when a high bead loading (40 %) was applied. Regardless of configuration increase in rotation speed and decrease in working volume improved the oxygen mass transfer rate. Increase in size led to enhanced mass transfer and higher kLa in baffled roller bioreactor (0.49 min−1 for 2.2 L and 1.31 min−1 for 55 L bioreactors). Finally, the experimentally determined kLa in the baffled roller bioreactors of different sizes fit reasonably well to an empirical correlation describing the kLa in terms of dimensionless numbers.