Advantages of Single-Use Plastic Bioreactors in Small-Scale Bioprocessing

Single‑use bioreactors (SUBs) offer an unprecedented level of flexibility to researchers and manufacturers. SUBs are made of plastic, and are incinerated after use rather than put through the CIP/SIP cycles required by traditional, stainless steel bioreactors. Advantages of single‑use plastic bioreactors are discussed here.

Increased purity and sterility mean more uptime

Single‑use vessels come sealed with impellers and spargers already installed. They do not need to be autoclaved before use, and can be installed directly into the outer support container.

Single‑use bioreactors are also not subject to in‑line sterilization. This saves time while essentially eliminating the risk of cross‑contamination between batches. This gives facilities the ability to quickly and easily switch between cell lines and product batches without worrying about purity.

Lower costs are distributed throughout the lifetime

SUBs drastically reduce capital expenditures. Single‑use plastic vessels are significantly cheaper than integrated stainless steel or glass vessels. Lifetime operating costs are also much lower than for traditional reactors, even accounting for recurring purchases of disposable components.

Perhaps most impactful, eliminating clean‑in‑place (CIP) procedures increases the available uptime of the reactor without sacrificing purity. This improves the return on investment for the reactor by greatly improving development and production speed.

Increased flexibility allows for easier experimentation

A single‑use bioreactor has a much larger operating range than do multiuse reactors, meaning a single vessel may be appropriate for a large variety of batch sizes. This allows for simpler experimentation and scale‑up than was previously available.

Additionally, vessels are no longer subject to the design constraints imposed by stainless steel, making them more innovative and versatile. For example, cubical designs allow for smaller footprints (and saved bench space) while providing natural baffles. The square vessels are easier to protect during packaging and shipping and are simpler to install.

Environmental benefits result from single-use

Quite counterintuitively, SUBs are generally considered to be more environmentally friendly than traditional bioreactors. While SUBs rely on disposable plastics, manufacturing plastics requires significantly less energy than manufacturing stainless steel, accounting for repeated production of the plastic vessels.

Single‑use vessels are then disposed of, while multiuse vessels are cleaned. CIP is extremely energy intensive, with wastewater containing harmful acids and detergents that must be neutralized (an additional energy‑intensive process). In contrast, single‑use components including sensors, tubing, and stirrers are disposed of by incineration, allowing some of the energy to be recovered.

Is this the end of multiuse reactors?

No! Traditional, multiuse bioreactors still outperform SUBs in a few key areas, the most important of which is the ability to deliver at scale. While batch sizes in cGMP production can easily reach 10,000 liters, SUBs batch sizes cannot exceed about 2,000 liters. This makes SUBs optimal through research and pilot phases, but drug producers will still need traditional reactors to meet the production demands of large-scale runs.

That said, SUBs have better sterility, higher product purity, reduced cleaning time, and much lower startup and maintenance costs than traditional bioreactors. Improvements in baffling, impelling, and sparging have all contributed to increasing the maximum batch size and further building out the advantages of single‑use plastic bioreactors. In short, SUBs have delivered on their early promises and are rapidly addressing remaining challenges with new developments in reactor technology.

Keep reading: Flow controllers with a 10,000:1 turndown ratio ensure SUB flexibility and scalability. $

Enabling Liquid Hydrogen Fuel Systems in Maritime Innovation

Alicat MCRQ Mass Flow Controllers Support TU Delft Hydro Motion Team’s Hydrogen Boat for the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge

May 31, 2021 | Bioreactors & Fermenters

Empowering Discovery on Water

The transition to sustainable energy in the maritime sector demands more than ambition, it requires precision. That is why Alicat Scientific is proud to support the TU Delft Hydro Motion Team as a Bronze Partner in their groundbreaking 2025 campaign: to design, build, test and race Mira, a liquid hydrogen-powered boat at the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge.

Equipping this innovative project with our MCRQ mass flow controllers enables the team to manage hydrogen fuel delivery safely and accurately, helping them prove that liquid hydrogen can power the next generation of clean marine propulsion.

Figure 1: Mira at the official reveal. Hydro Motion Team’s 2025 liquid hydrogen-powered boat.

The Challenge: Making Hydrogen Work for Maritime Transport

The goal of the TU Delft Hydro Motion Team is as ambitious as it is inspiring: to design, build, test, and race a fully functioning boat powered by liquid hydrogen, all within one year, and to compete at the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge 2025. But beyond the competition itself, the team’s mission reaches further. By proving that a boat can operate successfully on liquid hydrogen, they aim to spark broader innovation across the maritime sector and demonstrate hydrogen’s potential as a clean, scalable alternative to fossil fuels.

This project builds on the team’s past successes with compressed hydrogen, already a proven, zero-emission marine fuel. But as the team pushes for longer range and greater onboard efficiency, storage volume and energy density become the next major challenges. To solve this, the team chose to work with liquid hydrogen. With a volumetric energy density three times higher than compressed hydrogen at 350 bar, liquid hydrogen offers a powerful solution for saving space and extending endurance, key requirements in performance vessels.

But storing and using liquid hydrogen introduces challenges. The fuel must be kept at -253°C, requiring insulated cryogenic tanks. The team addresses this with a custom double-walled, vacuum-insulated carbon-fibber tank system, limiting heat ingress to just 7 watts, equivalent to a small LED bulb. To avoid wasting energy, waste heat from the fuel cell is used to bring hydrogen up to the required ~20°C operating temperature before reaching the fuel cell.

These trade-offs (boil-off rates, tank volume, storage weight, and onboard vaporization) are exactly the kinds of real-world constraints this project is designed to explore. And while Mira is a compact, foiling boat, the broader engineering question remains: could a system like this scale to larger vessels, such as ferries? That is the kind of thinking Alicat is excited to support with partners who are pushing the boundaries of what is possible.

The Role of Alicat: Flow Control After Vaporization

In Mira’s hydrogen system, hydrogen is stored as a cryogenic liquid. Before reaching the fuel cell, it passes through a vaporizer, transitioning into gas at ambient temperature. This phase is critical: delivering gas at the right pressure and flow requires stable regulation, fast feedback, and precise control.

Figure 2: Simplified diagram of the Hydro Motion Team’s hydrogen system.

To meet this need, the team integrated the Alicat MCRQ mass flow controller immediately downstream of the vaporizer. This device manages the mass flow of hydrogen gas into the fuel cell and enables:

Delivers stable and precise feed pressure to the fuel cell.
Measures hydrogen consumption through real-time mass flow monitoring
Monitors pressure and temperature to help prevent fuel cell issues like dehydration or fuel starvation.
Supports test validation and real-world performance optimization.

Compact, ATEX Zone 2 certified, and designed for fast system response, the MCRQ integrates easily into the tight constraints of a race-ready vessel. Its role is vital during system development, helping the team collect data, tune parameters, and prepare for race-day performance. In short, it helps translate bold hydrogen engineering into operational reliability.

Figure 3: Alicat’s MCRQ unit mounted inside the Hydro Motion Team’s hydrogen control system.

Why the MCRQ Was Selected

The Hydro Motion Team, together with our application engineers, selected the Alicat MCRQ series for its proven capability in low-flow hydrogen gas applications, offering a powerful combination of precision, speed, and safety. Key features that influenced the decision include:

Flow range of 0–1.5 g/s, which translates to ±0.01 g/s uncertainty at a nominal 1 g/s flow, small enough to maintain consistent fuel cell output.
4–20 mA analog output, chosen specifically for its high-speed update rates (kHz range)
ATEX Zone 2 IIC certification, requiring minimal additional safety infrastructure.
Upstream valve position, enabling precise regulation of downstream feed pressure, supporting target values like the ~2.5 bar commonly seen in fuel cell stacks.
±1.0% accuracy of reading (or ±0.2% of full scale)

Together, these features provide the team with a robust, compact, and responsive solution, a key enabler of real-world testing and a step toward scalable, clean hydrogen propulsion.

Competition Progress and What Comes Next

The TU Delft team unveiled the boat, Mira, earlier this year and is now deep into the testing phase, preparing for the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge 2025.

As testing progresses, the team continues optimizing the integration between hydrogen storage, vaporization, and control systems. Alicat’s instrumentation plays a central role in capturing this performance data for analysis and refinement.

This partnership represents more than a technical contribution. It reflects our belief that sustainable innovation thrives where education, engineering, and real-world experimentation meet.

By supporting the Hydro Motion Team and their work on Mira, Alicat contributes to:

Advancing liquid hydrogen fuel systems in marine transport
Empowering hands-on engineering education
Promoting practical low-emission propulsion technologies

We are honoured to be part of this project and proud to know that our instruments are helping to steer the future of clean maritime energy.

Together, we are not just measuring hydrogen. We are helping to Fuel the Future.

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