Abstract Summary (Max 250 words)
During the last decades the process intensification in the field of bioprocess and pharmaceutical engineering has made significant advances. Nevertheless, the demand of process intensification to develop and scale-up mammalian cell culture processes with high cell densities is still present. This work focuses on tests of new stirrer types for intensified oxygen mass transfer in pilot scale stirred tank reactors and the scale up to 15 000 L industrial scale. Improvements are compared to the commonly used combination of a Rushton turbine and a pitched blade stirrer. On pilot scale a significant improvement of the mass transfer performance was achieved for the combination of Rushton turbines with Combijet-like stirrers. The promising combinations have been characterized further in the transparent industrial sized stirred tank reactor at the Institute of Multiphase Flows in Hamburg. Significant difference in mass transfer performance and dependency on power input were observed compared to the investigations at pilot plant scale. This presentation aims to discuss the conducted scaleup study and the scale dependent parameters that need to be considered.
