Modeling gas–liquid mass transfer for bioreactor scale-up

Pfizer worked with Simcenter M-Star to develop a fully transient, GPU-accelerated model for predicting mixing and gas–liquid mass transfer in two-phase stirred-tank bioreactors. Microbioreactors play a pivotal role in making biologic medicines. In fact, 10 of the top 15 selling drugs worldwide were made in a bioreactor. The approach separates mass-transfer contributions from the free surface and individual bubbles and links mass-transfer behavior to the underlying local fluid mechanics. The model was validated against experimental mass-transfer measurements across multiple microbioreactor operating conditions without requiring re-tuning, demonstrating its potential as a first-principles tool for bioreactor scale-up and technology transfer.