Adaption Of The BioLector Technology To Anaerobic Requirements

Biorefineries have reignited interest in anaerobic fermentations with biobutanol production being the principle driver. Already during the First World War Biobutanol and acetone were produced in Clostridium acetobutylicum. Due to the volatility of the oil market, the biobutanol process is having resurgence.

Moreover, much research in recent years has focused on microbioreactor strategies for aerobic cultivations. Microbioreactors based on bubble columns, miniaturized stirred tanks or simple microtiter plates (MTP) are all commonplace. These reaction platforms facilitate high-throughput operations, and in many cases, also offer online process information to advance fermentation studies in systems or synthetic biology as well as in bioprocess development. However, detailed process information on anaerobic fermentations is usually derived from standard stirred tank reactors where an anaerobic atmosphere can be easily maintained. The drawback of experiments in stirred tank reactors is that they are very laborious and costly.