CFD-PBM Simulation and Scale-Up of the Pilot-Scale Bioreactor
Hao Chen, Xiu‐Guang Yi, Xi‐Bao Zhang, Zheng‐Hong Luo
Abstract
The structural design and scale-up of stirred bioreactors are the focus of fermentation engineering. In this work, a coupled computational fluid dynamics-population balance model (CFD-PBM) method is applied to study the influence of the combination mode of impellers, hole diameter, and the number of gas distributors and the combination structure on the performance of a pilot-scale bioreactor. The results indicate that the gas distribution is greatly affected by the structure of the gas distributor and the diameter of the impellers. Through comparative analysis of the results obtained by five impellers and gas distributor combinations, it can be found that the best dispersion effect of gas holdup and mixing performance of bioreactors and the smallest energy consumption of bioreactors (7.53 W/L) can be achieved by adopting a combination of Rushton turbine (impeller 4 in a multi-impeller) with a four-hole ring distributor. Finally, a series of stirred bioreactors with volumes of 15, 45, and 75 m3 were designed based on the numerical simulation results of impeller combination and distributor optimization.