Innovative Danish company designing and producing high-tech wireless, online sensor particles for liquid analysis in industrial, biopharmaceutical, and specialty food and beverage companies.
The innovation is the Freesense particle. It is a free-floating wireless sensor ‘Freeparticle’ for online measurement in production scale bioreactors. Understanding the mixing conditions within industrial-scale bioreactors has been a topic of huge importance both for academics and process engineers for many years, as understanding this properly can lead to significant process improvements in the production process. Unfortunately, until now there has been no way of getting an accurate and validated understanding of what is happening inside these reactors during operation. The Freeparticle is the first device globally that can measure inhomogeneity inside bioreactors using its unique patent-pending positioning algorithm. This disruptive technology has already been embraced by multiple multinational bio players in Europe and abroad.
In addition to measuring inhomogeneity, the Freeparticle can measure other critical liquid analytical parameters such as pH, temperature, pressure, and in the future also glucose inside within the bioreactor. The novel data from the sensors gives scientists for the first time, a true picture of what is happening at all points within their bioreactors during a fermentation. This, combined with predictive data analysis will bring extremely valuable insights to the industry.
The particles can be added to the bioreactor before production, allowing the user to autoclave the sensors before use. Once the production process begins, the sensors activate and start sending out wireless data from within the tank, directly into the users’ production system and the Freesense cloud-based software. From the data analysis software, the user can see the measurements in real- time from the tank, enabling them to adjust certain production parameters such as heat transfer and stirring speeds and adapt the bioreactor construction to eliminate the gradients and reach higher output yields and optimize their processes accordingly. The Freeparticle is a game changer for the bioproduction industry, bringing industry 4.0 and artificial intelligence to their liquid fermentation processes.
Today in the bio-industry, a detailed picture of what really happens inside large bioreactors during fermentation remains largely unknown. It is also widely known and accepted in both academia and industry that significant gradients exist within these large tanks due to inefficient stirring and process control during operation.
Traditionally, process chemists rely on the analysis of off-line samples (e.g. cell dry weight) combined with a few on-line measurements at single points in the bioreactor (e.g. pH and temperature) to make decisions on how to adjust the operation.
The References/Customers’ concern is that the traditional measurements do not give enough information to make any significant improvements in the processes. The company Freesense will address the monitoring needs by online and real-time data: pH & temperature, pressure, position & speed, and improved control systems through the Freeparticles to give the information needed for the process optimization
