MICROBIOREACTORS AS ENGINEERING TOOLS FOR BIOPROCESS DEVELOPMENT

ABSTRACT Within the engineering and development of industrial bioprocesses, microbioreactors are microfluidic tools able to provide high-throughput screening tests in a fast and cheap manner by using small amounts of reagents. In addition, such tools are versatile and may allow a better controllability of parameters when compared to conventional bench-scale reactors. Consequentially, this technology has been gaining attention from the scientific community over the past years. In such scenario, this work provides a review study of the microbioreactor technology, outlining the origin, main concepts and principles of such technology, aiming to elucidate general questions that may emerge when studying such an approach. Past and current approaches are discussed aiming at drawing a comparative picture about such technology regarding future developments.