Packed-bed bioreactors are often used for aerobic solid-state fermentation, since the forced aeration supplies O2 and removes metabolic heat from bed. Motivated by potential applications in biorefineries, we review studies conducted on packed-bed over last decade, evaluating insights these provide into how large-scale packed beds should be designed operated. Many have low superficial air veloci...

For a packed bed in a distillation column, fmax is the maximum fractional liquid maldistribution that can be tolerated in a parallel column model whilst still being able to achieve the design separation. It was previously shown that fmax can be easily calculated from a conventional column simulation output and it is a measure of the sensitivity of a packed bed to maldistribution. In this paper,...