Micromixing in fermentors: Metabolic changes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and their relationship to fluid turbulence

✍ Scribed by E. H. Dunlop; S. J. Ye

• Book ID: 102767622
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1990
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 999 KB
• Volume: 36
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0006-3592
• DOI: 10.1002/bit.260360816

✦ Synopsis

Even when microorganisms are grown in highly agitated fermentors, calculation predicts a mismatch between the microscale of the turbulence (where the smallest eddy is typically 50-300 pm diameter) and the cellular dimensions (1-5 pm). The cell thus spends substantial portions of time in an apparently stagnant eddy, depleted of nutrients. The local fluid microscales were measured in a laboratory fermenter to confirm this. Us- ing S. cerevisiae in continuous culture, it is shown that the local microscales influence cell metabolism dramatically. The issues addressed i n this study are thus micromixing and microsegregation of reactants and how they influence cell yield.