Liquid films on shake flask walls explain increasing maximum oxygen transfer capacities with elevating viscosity.

In biotechnological screening and production, oxygen supply is a crucial parameter. Even though oxygen transfer is well documented for viscous cultivations in stirred tanks, little is known about the gas/liquid oxygen transfer in shake flask cultures that become increasingly viscous during cultivation. Especially the oxygen transfer into the liquid film, adhering on the shake flask wall, has not yet been described for such cultivations. In this study, the oxygen transfer of chemical and microbial model experiments was measured and the suitability of the widely applied film theory of Higbie was studied. With numerical simulations of Fick's law of diffusion, it was demonstrated that Higbie's film theory does not apply for cultivations which occur at viscosities up to 10 mPa s. For the first time, it was experimentally shown that the maximum oxygen transfer capacity OTRmax increases in shake flasks when viscosity is increased from 1 to 10 mPa s, leading to an improved oxygen supply for microorganisms. Additionally, the OTRmax does not significantly undermatch the OTRmax at waterlike viscosities, even at elevated viscosities of up to 80 mPa s. In this range, a shake flask is a somehow self-regulating system with respect to oxygen supply. This is in contrary to stirred tanks, where the oxygen supply is steadily reduced to only 5% at 80 mPa s. Since, the liquid film formation at shake flask walls inherently promotes the oxygen supply at moderate and at elevated viscosities, these results have significant implications for scale-up.

Rapid assessment of oxygen transfer impact for Corynebacterium glutamicum.

Oxygen supply is crucial in industrial application of microbial systems, such as Corynebacterium glutamicum, but oxygen transfer is often neglected in early strain characterizations, typically done under aerobic conditions. In this work, a new procedure for oxygen transfer screening is presented, assessing the impact of maximum oxygen transfer conditions (OTRmax) within microtiter plate-based cultivation for enhanced throughput. Oxygen-dependent growth and productivity were characterized for C. glutamicum ATCC13032 and C. glutamicum DM1933 (lysine producer). Biomass and lysine product yield are affected at OTRmax below 14 mmol L(-1) h(-1) in a standardized batch process, but not by further increase of OTRmax above this threshold value indicating a reasonable tradeoff between power input and oxygen transfer capacity OTRmax. The described oxygen transfer screening allows comparative determination of metabolic robustness against oxygen transfer limitation and serves identification of potential problems or opportunities later created during scale-up.

Comparison of two methods for designing calorimeters using stirred tank reactors.

Calorimetry is a robust method for online monitoring and controlling bioprocesses in stirred tank reactors. Up to now, reactor calorimeters have not been optimally constructed for pilot scale applications. Thus, the objective of this paper is to compare two different ways for designing reactor calorimeters and validate them. The "heat capacity" method based on the mass flow of the cooling liquid in the jacket was compared with the "heat transfer" method based on the heat transfer coefficient continuously measured in the cultivation of Escherichia coli VH33 in a 50 L stirred tank reactor. It was found that the values of the "heat transfer" method agreed very well with the calculated values from the oxygen consumption. By contrast, the curve of the "heat capacity" method deviated from that of the oxygen consumption calculated with the oxycaloric equivalent. In conclusion, the "heat transfer" method has been proven to have a higher degree of validity than the "heat capacity" method. Thus, it is a better and more robust means to measure heat generation of fermentations in stirred tank bioreactors on a pilot scale.

Permeability of currently available microtiter plate sealing tapes fail to fulfil the requirements for aerobic microbial cultivation.

Microtiter plate (MTP) sealing tapes are commonly applied in bioprocess development and high throughput screening in order to maintain sterile conditions and avoid liquid evaporation. However, only a few of the commercially available sealing tapes are adequately characterized to guarantee both minimal evaporation and sufficient oxygen supply for aerobic cultivation. Therefore, 12 commercially available sealing tapes are analyzed concerning their water vapor and oxygen permeability. The water vapor permeability is assessed by gravimetrically quantifying the liquid loss due to evaporation. Thereby, the sealing tapes are revealed significant differences. Highly permeable sealing tapes are resulted in liquid loss of up to 25% of the initial filling volume after 8 h at 37°C and 45% ambient humidity. Additionally, the tremendous impact of evaporative cooling on the liquid temperature is detected discovering deviations of up to 3.8°C from the set temperature. The oxygen permeability is assessed by measuring the oxygen transfer rate (OTR). Three out of the 12 tested sealing tapes are impermeable to oxygen while the remaining sealing tapes are ensured sufficient oxygen supply. As a result, all examined sealing tapes are inadequate with respect to either water or oxygen permeation. Based on these novel experimental results, prospective improvements of MTP sealing tapes are presented using a model approach.

Improvement and scale-down of a Trichoderma reesei shake flask protocol to microtiter plates enables high-throughput screening.

Nowadays, high-throughput screening is essential for determining the best microbial strains and fermentation conditions. Although microtiter plates allow higher throughput in screening than shake flasks, they do not guarantee sufficient oxygen supply if operated at unsuitable conditions. This is especially the case in viscous fermentations, potentially leading to poor liquid movement and surface growth. Therefore, in this study, two aims were pursued. First, an industrial Trichoderma reesei shake flask protocol is improved with respect to oxygen supply and production. Second, this improved shake flask protocol is scaled down into microtiter plate under consideration of similar oxygen supply. For this purpose, the respiration activity monitoring system (RAMOS) was applied. An approach based on a sulfite system was introduced to ensure equal maximum oxygen transfer capacities (OTRmax) in microtiter plates and shake flasks. OTRmax-values of 250 mL shake flasks and 24-well microtiter plates were determined in a wide range of operating conditions. These sulfite datasets were used to identify operating conditions leading to the same oxygen supply for T. reesei in shake flasks and 24-well microtiter plates. For 24-well microtiter plates, the shake flask OTRmax of 20 mmol/L/h of an industrial protocol was obtained under the following optimal operating conditions: 1 mL filling volume per well, 200 rpm shaking frequency and 50 mm shaking diameter. With these conditions almost identical oxygen transfer rates and product concentrations were measured in both scales. The proposed approach is a fast and accurate means to scale-down established screening procedures into microtiter plates to achieve high-throughput.