Azadirachtin production in stirred tank reactors by Azadirachta indica suspension culture

Successful scale-up of Azadirachta indica suspension culture for azadirachtin production was done in stirred tank bioreactor with two different impellers. The kinetics of biomass accumulation, nutrient consumption and azadirachtin production of A. indica cell suspension culture were studied in a stirred tank bioreactor equipped with centrifugal impeller and compared with similar bioreactor with a setric impeller to investigate the role of O2 transfer efficiency of centrifugal impeller bioreactor on overall culture metabolism. The maximum cell mass for centrifugal impeller bioreactor and stirred tank bioreactor (with setric impeller) were 18.7 and 15.5 g/L (by dry cell weight) and corresponding azadirachtin concentrations were 0.071 and 0.05 g/L, respectively. Glucose and phosphate were identified as the major growth-limiting nutrients during the bioreactor cultivation. The centrifugal impeller bioreactor demonstrated less shearing and improved O2 transfer than the stirred tank bioreactor equipped with setric impeller with respect to biomass and azadirachtin production.