Miniaturized stirred-tank reactors with LED illumination for photoautotrophic high-throughput bioprocess design

Philipp Benner, Doctoral Thesis Technische Universität München, 2024

Parallel-operated, miniaturized stirred-tank reactors were made available for photoautotrophic microalgae cultivation with the help of novel LED illumination units. An adapted light distribution model enabled the simulation of light availability in microalgae suspensions in stirred-tank reactors on a millilitre scale. Thus, 48-fold parallel and automated batch processes could be used in a simple and efficient manner to identify the photoautotrophic growth kinetics of microalgae.

Publications

  • Benner P, Lüdtke FJ, Beyer N, von den Eichen N, Oropeza Vargas JE, Weuster-Botz D (2023): LED illumination modules enable automated photoautotrophic cultivation of microalgae in parallel milliliter-scale stirred-tank bioreactors. Appl Sci 13: 5064.
  • Benner P, Meier L, Pfeffer A, Krüger K, Oropeza Vargas JE, Weuster-Botz D (2022): Lab-scale photobioreactor systems: Principles, applications, and scalability. Bioproc Biosys Eng 45: 791-813.
  • Benner P, Effenberger S, Franzgrote L, Kurzrock-Wolf T, Kress K, Weuster-Botz D (2020): Contact-free infrared OD measurement for online monitoring of parallel stirred-tank bioreactors up to high cell densities. Biochem Eng J 164: 107749.