Question

What is a single-use bioreactor, what is it advantage and disadvantage?

Answer 1

A single-use bioreactor or disposable bioreactor is a bioreactor with a disposable bag instead of a culture vessel.

this refers to a bioreactor in which the lining in contact with the cell culture will be plastic, and this lining is encased within a more permanent structure.

advantage

One of the biggest advantages of single‑use bioreactors is flexibility.

Single‑use bioreactors provide maximum savings on the time spent to prepare the bioreactor for the next batch. The extent of time depends on the nature of the batch.

Single‑use bioreactors are also considered safe, simple and clean, and the possibility of batch‑to‑batch contamination by adventitious microorganisms or through product cross‑contamination is significantly controlled with such systems.

Disadvantage

In many cases, single‑use bioreactors are produced from plastic derivatives. In addition to validation concerns related to potential leachable and extractable materials, the large‑scale disposal of such plastic reactors on a regular basis is also an environmental concern. This is a key challenge, particularly in countries where the disposal of plastics is strictly controlled.

The success of developmental trials to optimise the process conditions for manufacturing depends on the implementation of those parameters in the scale-up and production scale processes. The availability of single-use bioreactors that can translate those precise conditions at large fermentation volumes is a key challenge; volume size is restricted (no more than 2000 L) and questions still remain regarding the quality of the end-product following large-scale manufacture.