Bioreactors Rushton turbine

Until recently most industrial scale, and even bench scale, bioreactors of this type were agitated by a set of Rushton turbines having about one-thind the diameter of the bioreactor (43) (Fig. 3). In this system, the air enters into the lower agitator and is dispersed from the back of the impeller blades by gas-fiUed or ventilated cavities (44). The presence of these cavities causes the power drawn by the agitator, ie, the power requited to drive it through the broth, to fall and this has important consequences for the performance of the bioreactor with respect to aeration (35). k a has been related to the power per unit volume, P/ U, in W/m and to the superficial air velocity, in m/s (20), where is the air flow rate per cross-sectional area of bioreactor. This relationship in water is... 

Roman, R.V. and Gavrilescu, M. (1994) Oxygen transfer efficiency and biosynthesis of antibiotics in bioreactors with modified Rushton turbine agitator. Acta BiotechnoL, 14 (2), 181-192. 

Roman, R.V., Tudose, Z.R., Gavrilescu, M., Cojacaru, M., and Luca, S. (1996) Performance of industrial scale bioreactors with modified RUSHTON turbine agitators. Acta BiotechnoL, 16 (1), 43-56. 

Figure 3.20 Concentration fields during a fed-batch process in a 900-1 bioreactor equipped with three Rushton turbines, (a)...

FIGURE 2 Agitators or impellers used in stirred bioreactors (a) Rushton disc turbine (b) concave bladed turbine (c) Prochem Maxfio T hydrofoil (d) Lightnin A315 hydrofoil (e) Chemineer hydrofoil and (f) marine propeller. 

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