Single-Use Bioreactor Boasts Disposable pH and Dissolved Oxygen Sensors

A single-use bioreactor vessel with built-in pH and dissolved oxygen sensors suitable for work with mammalian, insect, and plant cell cultures is now available to researchers in biopharmaceuticals and other life sciences.

The Sartorius Stedim Biotech (Aubagne, France) UniVessel SU is a single-use bioreactor with two-liter working volume. The vessel is made of USP class VI conform polycarbonate and includes several ports for media addition, sampling, harvesting as well as spare ports for insertion of classical sensors or other equipment. All tubing for media transfer is thermoweldable and features common Luer or MPC connectors for fast and easy connection to peripheral equipment.

Key features of the UniVessel SU are the single-use sensors for optical measurement of pH and dissolved oxygen (DO). The determination of pH and DO with the SENSOLUX system is based on fluorescence detection. Each UniVessel SU contains two sensor patches for pH and DO, respectively. The actual measurement is performed optically and noninvasively from outside the vessel. The sensor patches contain fluorescent dyes, which can be excited with light of a given wavelength. Optoelectronics integrated in the vessel holder transmit light of a particular wavelength to the sensor patches. In turn, they also transmit the luminescence response from the patches to a measuring amplifier. The sensor patches inside the UniVessel SU come precalibrated. Calibration data are located on the vessel label and can be transferred manually or by barcode reader to the calibration menu of the bioreactor controller.

Each UniVessel SU unit is irradiated prior to delivery and is ready-to-use out of the box. It is designed to the same safety standards that are required for classical multi-use bioreactors. The complete culture vessel is disposed after use, eliminating cleaning time, autoclaving, and reinstallation bother as well as the risk of cross-contamination.

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