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Poster Presentation 3-71
Numerical Simulation of an Immobilized Enzymatic Microbioreactor
Robert Bailey1, Prakash Damshala1, Bill Elmore2 and Frank Jones1
1University of Tennessee at Chattanooga College of Engineering 238 Grote Hall, 615 McCallie Avenue Chattanooga, TN 37403
2Louisiana Tech University
Telephone: (423) 755-4366; Fax: (423) 755-5229; Email: Frank-Jones@utc.edu
Microbioreactors have several potential advantages over conventional bioreactors, including the ability to scale up effective designs by simple replication and to precisely control packing shape and density to improve reactor efficiency and effectiveness. To exploit these potential advantages, a novel, continuous flow immobilized enzymatic microbioreactor is being developed. The reactor uses an inexpensive, chemically stable polymer, PDMS, as the supporting substrate. In conjunction with experimental work (reported separately), numerical simulations of the three-dimensional reacting flow within a single reactor microchannel were conducted using the CDF-ACE+ commercial computational fluid dynamics code.
The objectives of the simulation effort were threefold. First, adequately model the relevant physics including fluid mechanics, species diffusion, reaction kinetics (Michaelis-Menten), and reactor geometry. Second, explore the impact of channel depth to demonstrate the dramatic benefits of the microscale. Finally, investigate the effects of packing configuration by varying the size, shape, and density of the obstructions.
Comparisons with urease and catalase experimental conversions revealed that the computational model was able to effectively simulate the reactor performance. Various flow obstruction geometries were investigated, and based on the results, size, shape and packing density were optimized for this novel reactor. The techniques demonstrated in this paper can be used to optimize microbioreactor geometries for a host of potential reactions.
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