If gentle pump systems are required

Media in the biotechnological and pharmaceutical industry make high demands on pumps. The Swiss pump specialist Ismatec offers a wide range of peristaltic (tubing), gear and piston pumps which depending on the exact application can be incorporated with different functions into bioreactor systems.
Generally speaking all media/reagents entering/leaving a bioreactor must be sterile. This usually is achieved by autoclaving the liquid itself plus all the contact surfaces between the feed reservoir and the reactor. Usually the easiest pump type to employ is the peristaltic pump, because here the only contacted surface is the pump tubing which is available in pharmaceutical quality and is autoclaveable. Gear, piston and membrane pumps usually stumble at the first hurdle as they are not autoclaveable but are at best sterilizable/clean-in-place. However not all feed solutions can be sterilized by autoclaving, some have to be filter-sterilized and under these conditions a gearpump can be employed. In the following solutions for cell harvesting, sterile filtration, substrate feeding and pH/antifoam control are described using benchtop and panel-mounted peristaltic, gear and piston pumps.