Airlift mixing uses a stream of gas bubbles to both mix the culture contents and provide culture gasses without the need for a mechanical impeller. Airlift mixing provides many benefits, especially to cells or products which can be damaged by the mechanical stresses and heat induced by mechanical mixing.
Airlift mixing historically relied on rigid and multi-use bioreactors incorporating vertical cylinders to segregate the culture and enable the bubbles to lift up one and descend down another. Whilst effective and readily scaleable to very large (>1,000,000 litres) volumes, airlift bioreactors (ALBs) typically have the same cleaning and assembly issues as conventional stirred tank bioreactors. Cellexus’ patented
CellMaker technology changes all that by combining the benefits of airlift mixing with the process improvements offered by single use bioprocess bags. Going back to the drawing board Cellexus re-thought the concept of a bioreactor and created a design which is as far from a cylinder or cushion as it can be.
Our unique bioreactor geometry ensures optimal mixing and gas exchange without dead spots with highly effective heat exchange to maintain cultures at the temperature you need (+/- 0.1°C) – see our Mixing & kLa white paper for more details.