Developing an orbitally shaken bioreactor featuring a square vessel wall with a large circular chamfer

The impact of orbitally shaking bioreactors (OSRs) on the biopharmaceutical industry is becoming increasingly important. In the preliminary exploration of the orbitally shaking bioreactor performance, the vessel wall shape has a crucial influence on the mixing and mass transfer in the bioreactor. However, the shape of OSRs still maintains a cylindrical structure, significantly limiting the advantages of the orbital shaking mixing. Therefore, in order to further improve the mixing and mass transfer performance of OSRs, a novel wall shape is proposed in this paper. This novel wall shape consists of cylindrical and square parts and looks like a square tank with a large circular chamfer (STCC), which was found could effectively enhance the efficiency of material mixing and mass transfer theoretically. Based on the same specific volumetric power consumption, a comparative analysis was conducted on the mixing time and oxygen transfer efficiency of OSRs with different shape walls using simulation and experimental methods. The results showed that the OSR with STCC was expected to perform higher mixing and oxygen transfer efficiency than the OSR with cylindrical wall. These findings suggested a promising prospect for the future application of the OSRs with STCC. •Developing a novel wall structure (STCC) improving the mixing performance of OSRs.•Both oxygen mass transfer and mixing efficiency were increased with the STCC effect.•Improving the bioreactor performance with low calculated shear stress.•Mixing speed was found significantly lower in the vortex center than other regions.•Promising prospect for the future application of the OSRs with STCC.