WHY USE BUBBLE-COLUMN BIOREACTORS

Among the plethora of bioreactors available for aerobic culture, bubbl e columns, which are composed of a cylindrical vessel fitted with a ga s sparger, are gaining in use. The simple construction of bubble-colum n reactors makes them easy to maintain. In addition, it is possible to control the degree of shear, uniformly within the reactor, which is c ritical to the growth of plant and animal cells in particular. This ar ticle reviews in detail the hydrodynamic, heat and mass-transfer chara cteristics of bubble-column bioreactors-parameters that are important for industrial scale-up.