Dr. Cees Haringa
DSM Biotechnology center
spricht zum Thema

„Taking the microbial perspective in industrial-scale fermentations“

While the performance of micro-organisms is typically assessed under ideal lab-scale conditions, conditions in industrial scale reactors may be strongly non-ideal due to transport limitations which induces large-scale environmental heterogeneity. Such differences may induce scale-up losses and hence pose a risk in bioprocess development.
In order to quantify the impact of environmental heterogeneity on the process, one should quantify how this environment is experienced from the microbial perspective. Such a perspective is not readily available experimentally but can be replicated using Euler-Lagrange computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations. The information gathered from such simulations, in the form of so-called ‘microbial lifelines’ can be used to devise experiments that replicate the large-scale environment in lab-scale setups, called scale-down simulators, thereby allowing the assessment of possible scaling losses. The lessons learned from such scale-down simulators can subsequently be integrated in CFD simulations, allowing for in-silico assessment and optimization of reactor designs to minimize scale-up risks.
In this talk, I’ll summarize the lessons learned from taking the microbial perspective in industrial-scale fermentations. To conclude, a longer-term perspective is provided. Which are the open challenges in bioreactor simulation, what is the potential if these challenges can be overcome?

18. September 2019 16:00 Uhr

Forschungszentrum Jülich Geb. 15.4, Raum 302