Non-Invasive Online Monitoring of Cell Growth in Disposable Bioreactors with a Planar Coil

To ensure high quality output of biotechnological processes, relevant process parameters need to be monitored. As bioprocesses are increasingly executed in single use bioreactors, there is an increasing demand for new sensors applicable to these processes. In this work, we present a low-cost sensor system for continuous non-invasive cell growth monitoring, especially for single use bioreactor applications. The system consists of a planar coil connected to a low cost network analyzer. The coil is attached to the outside of the polymer foil of the single use bioreactor and an impedance spectrum is measured. To evaluate the sensor, E. coli cultivations are performed in a modified cultivation setup, which enables measurements through the polymer foil of a Sartorius BIOSTAT^® CultiBag RM, and additionally allows sampling of culture medium for optical density reference measurements. The resonance peak of the coil in the impedance spectrum, is observed as measure for the optical density. Regardless of the simple sensor construction, we found a good correlation between optical density and the damping ratio of the resonance peak.