Airlift Bioreactors: Review of Recent Advances

Airlift reactors are popular in the modern bioprocess research and development, over a broad spectrum of processes. Those range from the production of very expensive biochemicals to wastewater treatment. In both extremes the reason behind the selection of the airlift reactor is related to fluid dynamic characteristics. During the last few years, a large number of research papers dealing with the dependence of reactor performance on liquid flow have been published. In some of them, descriptions of devices that have been developed in order to improve, or to gain further control of the fluid patterns in the reactor are reported.