ERT 314 BIOREACTOR SYSTEM

Tutorial 4

1. A cylindrical tank (1.22 m diameter) is filled with water to an operating level equal to
the tank diameter. The tank is equipped with four equally spaced baffles whose width
is one tenth of the tank diameter. The tank is agitated with a 0.36 m diameter flat six-
blade disk turbine. The impeller rotational speed is 2.8 rps. The air enters through an
open-ended tube situated below the impeller and its volumetric flow rate is 0.00416
m3/s at 1.08 atm and 25 ̊ C. Calculate the power requirement in this gas-sparged
system?

2. Laboratory-scale fermenters are usually mixed using small stirrers with electric
motors rated between 100 and 500 W. One such motor is used to drive a 7-cm turbine
impeller in a small reactor containing fluid with the properties of water. The stirrer
speed is 900 rpm. Estimate the power requirements for this process. How do you
explain the difference between the amount of electrical power consumed by the motor
and the power dissipated by the stirrer?

3. A cylindrical bioreactor of diameter 3 m has four baffles. A Rushton turbine mounted

in the reactor has a diameter onethird the tank diameter and is operated at a speed of
100 rpm. The density of the fluid is approximately I g cm-3. The reactor is used to
culture an anaerobic organism that does not require gas sparging. The broth can be
assumed Newtonian. As the cells grow, the viscosity of the broth increases.

(a) Compare power requirements when the viscosity is:

(i) approximately that of water;

(ii) 104 times greater than water.

(b) When the viscosity is 1000 times greater than water, estimate the power
required to achieve turbulence.