Hiroshi Sonoda

Studies on Oxygen Transfer in Submerged Fermentations: Part IV. Determination of Oxygen Transfer Rate and Respiration Rate in Shaken Cultures Using Oxygen Analyzers

The application of oxygen analyzer to the determination of oxygen transfer rate in shaken flasks was intended in order to obtain the similar advantages already realized in fermentation tanks. The difficulty of this intension was that in shaken flasks the determination of the partial pressure of gas-phase oxygen in flasks did not give the oxygen transfer rate but supplied only the data on the equilibrium condition. By separating the oxygen transfer sequences, however, oxygen transfer coefficient of cotton plugs, overall oxygen transfer coefficient of gas-liquid interface and respiration rate of cells were evlauated with the oxygen analyzer. This unsteady-state gas analysis method had some distinctive characters, especially no necessity of determining dissolved oxygen, and oxygen transfer problems in shaken flasks could be discussed based on this method.