Development of multiplexed microcontroller based system for microbioreactor

Abstract

Bioreactor is a device that widely used in fermentation process. Bench scale bioreactor and shake flask are the most used devices to optimize such process. Due to their high running cost and the high amount of labour required, new and better alternative way must be found to carry on the optimization process. In the most recent years, scientists have been working on smaller bioreactor of volume less than 1 millilitre and became known as microbioreactor. This device and due to its small volume size should bring more benefits and potential to optimization process in fermentation. Since microbioreactor stills in development phase, researches till date are trying to come with ideas and designs to be adopted later as acceptable industry standard. In the literature, there have been many designs attempts to create a platform to support one or more microbioreactors. Many of these attempts have achieved great results with comparable performance to that of bench scale bioreactor. Most the previous designs are made with the usage of data acquisition card from National instrument. The trend toward NI DAQ is due to the simplicity in programming environment, being user friendly and many other features. Biochemical engineers could settle for alternative and cheaper way, if they are willing to give up some of the convenient and features provided by NI DAQ. In this project, this alternative method is being investigated, tested and used. The goal is to use microcontroller as DAQ to provide controlling, data logging and monitoring of temperature and speed control for microbioreactor. This setup will be totally microcontroller based and using dedicated electronic circuit to achieve the objectives. The results for temperature and agitation control that have been obtained are satisfactory and now this setup is ready to be used on actual microbioreactor.