Bioreactor: Design of Bioreactor and its Types

Any manufactured equipment or system that supports a biologically active environment is referred to as a bioreactor. A bioreactor is a vessel in which a chemical process involving organisms or biochemically active compounds produced from such organisms is carried out. This process might be aerobic or anaerobic in nature. These bioreactors are typically cylindrical in shape, with sizes ranging from liters to cubic meters, and are frequently composed of stainless steel.

In the context of cell culture, it can also refer to a device or method for growing cells or tissues. These devices are being created for tissue engineering and biochemical/bioprocess engineering applications. A bioreactor can be characterized as batch, fed batch, or continuous depending on how it operates (e.g. a continuous stirred-tank reactor model). The chemostat is an example of a continuous bioreactor. Because bioreactors are highly nonlinear, a variety of unique control mechanisms have been developed.