Mitchell, Johns, & Litster, 1999) (Fig. 3). Its main disadvantage
is that the drum is filled to only 30% capacity,
otherwise mixing is inefficient.
Fluidised bed: In order to avoid the adhesion and
aggregation of substrate particles, this design supplies
a continue agitation with forced air (Fig. 4). Although
the mass heat transfer, aeration and mixing of the substrate
is increased, damage to inoculum and heat
build-up through sheer forces may affect the final
product yield.
The different disadvantages detected in the abovementioned
bioreactor designs to perform SSF processes
have promoted the necessity of developing new bioreactor
configurations or modifying the already existing designs.
These bioreactor configurations should be able to
operate in continuous mode with high productivity for
prolonged periods of time without operational problems
as well as permit the scale-up of the process. Our research
group has been working in this field, resulting