Overview on design considerations for development of disposable microbiorector prototypes

Microbioreactors are a miniaturized scale bioreactor system normally designed for bioprocess development. Such a microbioreactor design offer a new platform in carrying out cheap fermentation experiments under well controlled conditions – comparable to that of typical bench scale bioreactors. Additionally, by adapting polymer technology, microbioreactor can for example be made disposable. Thus, eliminates the need for cleaning of the reactor at the end of every experiment. Since typical working volumes of microbioreactors are less than 1 mL, this furthermore reduces substrate and utility consumption per experiment. Additionally, often a microbioreactor system is interfaced with optical measurements to acquire a real-time experimental data and thus, increases the amount of information gained per experiment. To design a microbioreactor system, one must consider the design of the entire system that drives the reactor and not just restrict the design only to the mechanical aspects of the reactor. In this paper, important design considerations as well as technical challenges for establishment of a microbioreactor to facilitate a typical aerobic fermentation processes are discussed. These include reactor operating feature and size, reactor mechanics (materials, fabrications, and mixing), reactor fluidics (connections, aeration, evaporation and feeding strategy), process control of physical parameters (temperature, pH, and dissolved oxygen level) and detection methods for measuring the cells concentration