Production-scale fermentation processes in industrial biotechnology experience gradients in process variables, such as dissolved gases, pH and substrate concentrations, which can potentially affect the production organism and therefore the yield and profitability of the processes. However, the extent of the heterogeneity is unclear, as it is currently a challenge at large scale to obtain representative measurements from different zones of the reactor volume. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models have proven to be a valuable tool for better understanding the environment inside bioreactors. Without detailed measurements to support the CFD predictions, the validity of CFD models is debatable. A promising technology to obtain such measurements from different zones in the bioreactors are flow-following sensor devices, whose development has recently benefitted from advancements in microelectronics and sensor technology. This paper presents the state of the art within flow-following sensor device technology and addresses how the technology can be used in large-scale bioreactors to improve the understanding of the process itself and to test the validity of detailed computational models of the bioreactors in the future.

工业生物技术中的生产规模发酵过程会经历过程变量的梯度，例如溶解气体，pH和底物浓度，这可能会影响生产有机体，从而影响过程的产量和利润率。然而，异质性的程度尚不清楚，因为从反应器体积的不同区域获得代表性的测量值目前是大规模的挑战。实践证明，计算流体动力学（CFD）模型是更好地了解生物反应器内部环境的宝贵工具。如果没有详细的测量来支持CFD预测，则CFD模型的有效性值得商de。从生物反应器的不同区域获得此类测量结果的一项有前途的技术是流量跟踪传感器设备，微电子学和传感器技术的进步使他的发展最近受益。本文介绍了流量跟踪传感器设备技术的最新状况，并探讨了该技术如何在大型生物反应器中使用，以增进对过程本身的了解并测试生物反应器中详细的计算模型的有效性。未来。