バイオプロセシングとバイオテクノロジーのジャーナル

CFD Analysis of Thermal Distribution in the Industrial Fermenter duringSterilization Process

Abstract

Pirooz AP, Ahmad HS and Gholam RR

In biological reactors, isolation of unwanted microorganisms by using sterilization is essential. One of the important reasons of microbial contamination in industrial fermenter is bioreactor poor design which causes to create dead spot during sterilization. Therefore, identifying the dead spots in the sterilization process is crucial which could be accomplished by computational fluid dynamics (CFD). In this study, for identifying the spots which their thermal distributions are not uniform (due to fermenter geometry deficiency), the sterilization process in a 140 m3 fermenter (without culture media) were modeled (129-133°C and 15 min). Study of temperature profile, velocity and stream lines shows that in the manhole, around the coils, steam inputs and below the impeller on the agitator shaft are the places that the risk of dead spot creation is high.