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Dissolved Oxygen Control in Bioreactors

An Eppendorf bioreactor control system offering effective DO control with agitation and sparging
Dissolved oxygen (DO) is a key driver affecting culture growth in bioreactors. However, cell lines and strains can have varied oxygen needs. The different types of oxygen requirements in bioreactors include:
  • Aerobic culture. With a typical DO concentration of over 30%, aerobic conditions are required for mammalian cell cultures and many microbial cultures including E. coli.
  • Microaerobic fermentation. With low concentrations of DO, microaerobic fermentation is often used for bacterial fermentation in the production of probiotics and the cultivation of some types of lactic acid bacteria.
  • Anaerobic fermentation. Growing in the absence of oxygen, anaerobic microbes are commonly used to produce various chemicals including ethanol, lactic acid and acetic acid.

Webinar: DO control in bioreactors

Tailoring Oxygen Transfer: A Key Driver for Bioprocess Intensification - In this webinar you learn about strategies to tailor the dissolved oxygen concentration in the culture medium and to reproduce it at different scales.

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Principle of DO control in bioreactors

The maintenance of optimal oxygen levels is essential for culture growth and productivity. In aerobic cultures the growing cells consume oxygen and an effective bioreactor DO control system is therefore required to keep the dissolved oxygen concentration stable. Within these systems, DO sensors transmit readings to a bioreactor control software, which adjusts the DO concentration via adjusting the agitation via impellers, the influx of gases including air and oxygen using gas spargers, and/or gas composition. Contrastingly, the removal of oxygen from bioreactors can be achieved through sparging nitrogen or other anaerobic gasses.

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When considering how to maximize the efficiency of DO control systems, several different parameters should be considered, including the choice of accessories, including DO sensor, sparger, and impeller and the choice of the control strategy. DO control strategies often involve cascades that define the activity of the different actuators for DO control. See below for advice on how each of these parameters should be optimized.

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How to optimize DO control

What are DO cascades?‌

What is a sparger? And how does the sparger type influence the DO?‌

How does the type of gassing influence the DO?‌

What is an impeller? And how does the impeller type influence the DO?‌

What is 100 % DO? And how is this different to the total oxygen concentration?‌

What kind of DO sensors exist and how are they calibrated?

Polarographic and optical DO sensors‌

KLa and OTR

What are kLa and OTR? And how are these parameters important for DO control?‌

Bioreactor control systems for effective DO control

The Eppendorf bioreactor control systems and software provide smart solutions for DO control. They

  • Are compatible with analog DO sensors and, dependent on the control system, digital Mettler Toledo ISM® or Hamilton ARC® DO sensors
  • Are compatible with polarographic and optical DO sensors
  • Enable the set-up of customizable DO cascades, with precise agitation and gas sparging to provide automated DO control
  • The Auto Calibrate software feature of the BioFlo® 320 and BioFlo® 720 bioreactor control systems automatically polarizes and calibrates DO sensors by the user’s preferred calibration methodology. This helps reducing variations between runs and contributes to bioprocess reproducibility.

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