3 ms·
What you’re describing (at least the heat aspect) is referred to as “Sterilization in Place” and it is standard practice to design into bioreactors already. Con
by plaidfuji 5y ago
What you’re describing (at least the heat aspect) is referred to as “Sterilization in Place” and it is standard practice to design into bioreactors already. Contamination still happens. In general you’re right though, the concept of continuous automated sterilization will need to be reimagined, but like many of the topics addressed in this article, a lot of the low hanging fruit has been picked.
https://www.flottweg.com/wiki/separation-technology/sterilization-in-place-sip/ https://www.flottweg.com/wiki/separation-technology/steriliz...
- yholio 5y agoThe description linked talks about a distinct sterilization phase, where hot steam is passed trough the installation prior to use. It seems exactly like the type of situation described in the article, where small welding gaps allow bacteria to stay alive - I would imagine, especially if the surrounding metal has enough thermal mass. My suggestion was a bit more nuanced, heat the very body of the reactor + reaction medium; but I could be venting hot air. Nonetheless, it's not a fundamental, thermodynamic limit, it's not like bacteria spontaneously materialize inside vats above a certain volume. It's a technical problem to solve, it seems solvable and once you solve it, all 100 ton reactors can use that design.