Computational fluid dynamics simulation of a novel bioreactor forsophorolipid production

This paper describes three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics （CFD） simulations of gas-liquid flow in anovel laboratory-scale bioreactor contained dual ventilation-pipe and double sieve-plate bioreactor （DVDSB）used for sophorolipid （SL） production. To evaluate the role of hydrodynamics in reactor design, the comparisonsbetween conventional fed-batch fermenter and DVDSB on the hydrodynamic behavior are predicted by the CFDmethods. Important hydrodynamic parameters of the gas-liquid two-phase system such as the liquid phasevelocity field, turbulent kinetic energy and volume-averaged overall and time-averaged local gas holdups weresimulated and analyzed in detail. The numerical results were also validated by experimental measurements ofoverall gas holdups. The yield of sophorolipids was significantly improved to 484 g. L^-1 with a 320 h fermenta-tion period in the new reactor.