The role of laboratory-scale bioreactors at the semi-continuous and continuous microbiological and biotechnological processes

• Published in: Applied microbiology and biotechnology Vol. 102; no. 17; pp. 7293 - 7308
• Main Authors: Tikhomirova, T. S., Taraskevich, M. S., Ponomarenko, O. V.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.09.2018; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Analysis; Biomass; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Bioreactors; Biotechnology; Biotechnology - instrumentation; Equipment and supplies; Fermentation; Heterogeneity; Industrial Microbiology - methods; Laboratories; Laboratory equipment; Life Sciences; Metabolites; Methods; Microbial Genetics and Genomics; Microbiology; Mini-Review; Open systems; Productivity; Reynolds number; Sensors; Solid state fermentation; Strain gauges; Russia; Continuous process; Scaling process; Immobilization; Lab-scale bioreactor; Solid-state fermentation
• ISSN: 0175-7598; 1432-0614
• DOI: 10.1007/s00253-018-9194-z

Laboratory-scale bioreactors represent an important part of microbiological, biotechnological, and biochemical researches. The small volume bioreactors enable the biomass growth, extracellular metabolite production, solid-state fermentation, and biocatalytic processes in a controlled open system. Using the lab-scale bioreactors, the processes which were optimized in experiments can be scaled up to a pilot level. In turn, the manufacturing scale processes can be scaled down to study the heterogeneity of the system and its effect on the producer. This mini-review is focused on a short description of features of the most popular designs of continuous and semi-continuous bioreactors applied at the present time as well as their application area.