Turning Bioreactor into Reality

Bioreactors - or fermenters - are equipments widely used in the industry to produce a variety of enzymes, antibodies, among others. There are also bioreactors employed in effluent waste treatment.

In partnership with professors and experts in bioreactor (Fernando Garcia and Osmarina Godoy) we elaborated a fermenter in a DIY style using an old autoclave as vessel and its parts found in mechanic garage leftovers. “Accidentally” our bioreactor looked like the Star Wars R2D2 and we loved that! Batches were conducted having manual addition in nutrients and inoculum. The vessel allowed 10 liters approximately.

The vessel is hermetically closed, however, there is an optional air entrance that can be released if necessary, for an aerobic process. To move the air to our “R2D2” we used an aquarium air pump. The air is guided by a 7mm tube, passing by a particle filter (the same used in car fuel filter). Followed by that the air passes through a UV light (specific for gas sterilization), only then it arrives to the process (clean and fresh air...for our fellows).

Inside the vessel we added a water pump in order to generate a liquid flux and oxygen. Any generated gas can go out through a 7mm tube driving it to an activated charcoal before being released to the atmosphere.

Results

Now some of our exciting results about the fermenteeeeeeer!!!

First let us explain a bit of experiments conditions:

It was inoculated BBa_K2123208 in 1L of LM media (LB with 50% less salt), ampicilin 100ug/mL, until achieve a 1,2 O.D. We added 600mL from the inoculated culture to LM 6L, HgCl2 10ug/mL. See the graph bellow:

After 18h, with the 0,591 OD, the concentration of mercury, measured by Direct Mercury Analyser at Brazilian Geological Service, was 3,1ug/mL, WHICH MEANS THAT THE BIOREACTOR BIOREMEDIATED ABOUT 70% OF MERCURY IN LESS THAT ONE DAY!!

Now we are going to do several tests to improve bioremediation and build patterns to stabilize the growth. After that we plan to scale up the process to a 5000L bioreator we received by donation. We are way too excited with all this and looking forward to the next tests!