Abstract
A combined computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and population balance
model (PBM) approach has been applied to simulate hydrodynamics and mass
transfer in a 0.18 m(3) gas-liquid stirred bioreactor agitated by (1) a
Rushton turbine, and (2) a new pitched blade geometry with rotating
cartridges. The operating conditions chosen were motivated by typical
settings used for culturing mammalian cells. The effects of turbulence,
rotating flow, bubbles breakage and coalescence were simulated using the
k-epsilon, multiple reference frame (MRF), Sliding mesh (SM) and PBM
approaches, respectively. Considering the new pitched blade geometry
with rotating aeration microspargers, mass transfer was estimated to be
34 times higher than the conventional Rushton turbine set-up. Notably,
the impeller power consumption was modeled to be about 50 \% lower.
Independent measurements applying the same operational conditions
confirmed this finding. Motivated by these simulated and experimental
results, the new aeration and stirring device is qualified as a very
promising tool especially useful for cell culture applications which are
characterized by the challenging problem of achieving relatively high
mass transfer conditions while inserting only low stirrer energy.
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