Engineering Analysis of Mixing in ATMI's Bioreactors Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

The Integrity® PadReactor™ and Nucleo™ systems are a single-use bioreactors specifically designed to fulfill the needs of cell culturists. They are perfectly suited to laboratory environments, process develop¬ment centers, clinical material supply and flexible GMP manufacturing.

The bioreactor vessel, which offers comparable functionality to classical stirred tank bioreactors, is a single-use bag integrating an internal paddle mixing and sparger system. This innovative bag design allows a non-invasive connection to the system. The paddle is enclosed in a medical grade ULDPE sleeve, made from the same contact material as the bag itself, and is coupled on top of the vessel with the mechanical mixing head.

Integrity Single-Use Bioreactor systems provide enhanced gas exchange due to a moving sparger, and low shear mixing due to the vertices of the square tank, which act as natural baffles. The purpose of this experiment is to illustrate the mixing characterization of the cube-shaped vessel and paddle mixing element of both the Nucleo and PadReactor systems.