De-risk the Scale-up Process

While growing thriving algae in a lab, it seems easy to replicate our cultures at a bench scale while maintaining biosecurity protocols. The problems emerged only when we wanted to carry out our results in the laboratory on a commercial or industrial scale. At this moment, maintaining your culture parameters becomes a challenge.

 

How to De-risk the Scale-up Process?

Knowing exactly which parameters are required for the perfect culture is the first step to setting yourself up for success and de-risking your scale-up process. Hence, understanding your temperature, nutrient, light, and pH requirements is critical for any size culture. How do you plan to get from your 5-20 L perfectly controlled lab culture to a large open raceway pond or 10,000 L tubular system and beyond? In most cases, inoculating directly from your 5-20 L vessel may not be the answer. The way to do it here is through a medium volume between the two. For example, a PBR 1250L.

How does a Seed Train Method De-risk the Scale-up Process?

That’s where a medium-volume bioreactor for seed train production (pre-production scale-up) can be the solution to bridge that gap, as it cultivates the algae in a controlled environment where all parameters are met and a vessel with a capacity greater than a 20 L carboy. If maintaining control of your culture as it grows is essential to you, then it may be time to consider a medium-volume bioreactor, such as an industrial plankton bioreactor.

How Algae Scale-up Works in Industrial Plankton Bioreactors?

Once you have inoculated your Industrial Plankton Bioreactor, you can choose the harvest rate that best suits your specific situation. Whether your culture requires batch, continuous, or semi-continuous harvest rates, the PBR will maintain a biosecure environment. Note that if you want to start a new culture, run the automated CIP system in between culture runs to prepare the vessel for your subsequent culture scale-up.

What are the Scale-Up Basics?

If you’re looking at how to scale-up your flask to carboy culture with minimal equipment, please check out our “Sterile Algae Transfer With Minimal Equipment” video.