Design of laboratory continuous-culture equipment for accurate gaseous metabolism measurements

The accuracy of kinetic and stoichiometric data obtained from most laboratory‐scale continuous‐culture equipment, particularly involving gaseous measurements, may be much lower than many workers realize, despite the use of good quality instruments. For example, errors in specific oxygen uptake measurements (QO2) easily can be as high as ±100%. This article assesses the accuracies of individual instruments and of the overall system in greater detail than has previously been reported and suggestions are made as to how the errors can be reduced to acceptable levels.