b'Engineer Innovation | MedicalTechnology challenges in bioreactor modelingOne of the main technology challenges facing ABEC customers is accurately predicting and modifying bioreactor performance across a wide range of scales and platforms. Each customers specific needs and challenges determines the range of scales across which the predictions need to be reproduced. According to Paul Kubera, vice presidentFigure 2: Simcenter STAR-CCM+ simulations of a triple low-shear impeller blender used to of process technology at ABEC, A typicalsimulate the operation of full-scale bioreactor unitsscenario might involve a project that has moved from the laboratory bench at theare achieved. The challenge is to create asolution is tailored to meet their specific tens-of-liters scale to processuniform environment that is consistentneeds based on how tightly they need to development, which may be operatingfor each organism in a vessel at each ofconstrain that solution regarding on a few hundreds-of-liters scale.those scales across platforms.processes and validation of those Another company on the verge ofprocesses.production might need to ramp up byAccording to Kubera, In order to meet thousands of liters in multiple units.the requirements of the project, theFor instance, a customer may be heavily growth of the organism must befocused on geometric similarity and Platform incompatibilities presentsupportedthey need food, a carbonwant uniformity as the equipment another potential obstacle. A companysource and to take in oxygen and give offoperates from a small scale to larger may be operating at one location with acarbon dioxide. scale. Common practice uses two basic hardware program that is different thanrules: maintain the same power per unit the one in use at a manufacturingIt is critical to be able to deliver a knownvolume and keep everything the same location elsewhere. To solve this, ABECamount of oxygen in a given timeframe,geometrically.assists the biopharmaceutical customerand to be able to remove carbon dioxide in bridging different platforms, fromfor all the organisms in the vessel.With this approach, performance small to large, to ensure the same resultsDepending on the customer objectives, aparameters change as vessel size 12'