Personal Information and Interests

Education:
B.Eng. Chemical Engineering
Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain, 2002

Academic Interests

Research Interests: Mechanistic Modeling of Increased Oxygen Transfer Using Functionalized Magnetic Fluids in Bioreactors
Thesis Advisors: Alan Hatton, Daniel I. C. Wang

Research Description

It is difficult to supply oxygen to cell cultures because of its low solubility in water. While other nutrients, such as glucose, can be dissolved in water up to several grams per liter, the solubility of O2 in normal fermentation conditions is less than 10 mg/L. As a result, productivities in fermentation processes are often constrained by transport of oxygen. Even though many approaches to overcome this problem have been tried in the literature, oxygen supply still remains an issue in many processes. Therefore, new methods for increasing oxygen transfer are needed.

A previous approach to reducing the oxygen transport limitation consisted in adding an organic (perfluorocarbon or paraffin) water-immiscible phase in which oxygen has a greater solubility. However, this application is limited by factors such as recovery of the oil and phase separation. To overcome these limitations, we propose to use functionalized magnetic fluids. These materials consist of particles that have a magnetic core and a polymer coating. The magnetic core facilitates recovery of the fluid after the fermentation by passing it through a magnetic field. The coating, which is made of one or more layers of polymer or surfactant, confers high-oxygen storing capacity and colloidal stability to the particle.

The purpose of my project is to determine the potential of these polymer coated magnetic particles for oxygen transfer increase and to examine theoretically the factors involved in oxygen transfer enhancement.