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Different methods for oxygen uptake rate (OUR) determinations in animal cell cultivation were investigated using a high quality mass spectrometer. Dynamic measurements have considerable disadvantages because of disturbances of the growing cells by the necessary variations of dissolved oxygen concentration. Only infrequent discrete measurements are possible using this method. Stationary liquid phase balance yielded better results with much higher frequency. Gas phase balancing has the advantage of not requiring dissolved oxygen measurement and knowledge of K(L)a, both of them are easily biased. It was found that simple gas phase balancing is either very inaccurate (error larger than expected signal) or very slow, with gas phase residence times of several hours. Therefore, a new method of aeration was designed. Oxygen and CO(2) transfer are mainly achieved via sparging. The gas released to the headspace is diluted with a roughly 100-fold stream of an inert gas (helium). Through this dilution, gas ratios are not changed for O(2), CO(2), Ar, and N(2). The measurement of lower concentrations (parts per million and below) is easy using mass spectrometry with a secondary electron multiplier. With this new method an excellent accuracy and sufficient speed of analysis were obtained. All these on-line methods for OUR measurement were tested during the cultivation of animal cells. The new method allowed better study of the kinetics of animal cell cultures as was shown with a hybridoma cell line (HFN 7.1, ATCC CRL 1606) producing monoclonal antibodies against human fibronectin. With the aid of these methods it was possible to find a correlation between a rapid decrease in oxygen uptake rate (OUR) and glutamine concentration. The sudden decrease in OUR can be attributed to glutamine depletion. This provided a basis for the controlled addition of glutamine to reduce the formation of ammonia produced by hydrolysis. This control method based on OUR measurement resulted in increased cell concentration and threefold higher product concentration. (c) 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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To monitor gas reaction rates in animal cell culture at constant dissolved oxygen concentration (DO) and constant pH it was necessary to develop improved control methods. Decoupling of both controllrs was obtained by manipulation of molar fractions of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the gas phase. Two pairs of DO and pH controllers were designed and tested both in simulation and exprimental runs. The first controller pair was developed for headspace aeration only, whereas the second controller pair was designed for bubble aeration using a microsparger and flushing the headspace with helium. pH was controlled by a conventional discrete PID controller in its velocity form. For DO control two linear state space feedback controllers with parameter adaptation were established. In these controllers the oxygen uptake rate (OUR) was considered as a disturbance and was not included in the mathematical model. The feedback gain adaptation was based on the difference between the actual molar fraction of oxygen at time step n and the initial molar fraction. This difference is related to OUR and was used to increase or decrease the state feedback controller gain (k and k(1), respectively) in a slow manner. With these controllers it was possible to get an excellent online estimate of OUR. In the case of bubble aeration a simple gas phase mass balance was sufficient, whereas during the headspace aeration a liquid phase balance was required. It has been shown that determination of OUR using gas balance requires a significantly better controller performance compared to just keeping DO and pH within reasonable limits. (c) 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Liquid‐phase concentrations of volatile compounds were determined on‐line via gasphase analysis using mass spectrometry. It has been shown theoretically as well as experimentally that almost every volatile compound commonly produced by microorganisms can be measured by the method presented, if its partial pressure in the fermentor off‐gas exceeds 1 μbar. This has been shown in a baker's yeast as well as a Bacillus subtilis culture. The experimental results also indicated that these measurements are not controlled by mass‐transfer kinetics. A dimensionless parameter, E, allows us to check whether the analysis is determined by thermodynamics (Henry coefficient) or by mass‐transfer rates.