Question

For high viscous fluids, air-driven reactors are preferred over stirred vessels.

(a) True

(b) False

I had been asked this question in class test.

This key question is from Bioreactor Configurations in portion Reactor Engineering of Bioprocess Engineering

Answer 1

Right choice is (b) False

For explanation: If the culture has high viscosity, sufficient mixing and mass transfer cannot be provided by air-driven reactors. Stirred vessels are more suitable for viscous liquids because greater power can be input by mechanical agitation. Nevertheless, mass- transfer rates decline rapidly in stirred vessels at viscosities greater than 50-100 cP.