The humble bioreactor

7. Entry blog 6 November 2015: 6^th bioprocessing lecture

This week’s lecture we talked about bioreactors, just what are they, how they are set up, what makes up a bioreactor and what ancillaries do we need for our chosen bioreactor. One of the tasks beset upon us this week is to think about what type of bioreactor we need for our bioprocess and the scale of the bioreactor and the different ancillaries required for our bioreactor. As I’m only focusing on the bread production, I did not really think of what is required for the cheese production. This was both an advantage and a disadvantage, a double-edged sword. Firstly, it’s an advantage as it’s one less thing to worry about, however, it sets you up for being complacent and really miss out on the big picture of the bioprocess as a whole.

I thoroughly enjoyed building the bioreactor/equipment we needed for the bread production, albeit theoretically. I got to implement the knowledge I gained during my biotechnology lecture in the previous year, a module which I found very enjoyable, which therefore made this task equally pleasant.