I’ve been teaching use of pioreactors in chemostat and turbidostat modes, and the latest batch have the lovely new labelling on the top. It’s causing the students problems though. They need to know that what they are producing is ‘Product’, but they keep calling it ‘Waste’ because that’s the way it’s labeled on the peristaltics. We have Media, Alt-Media and Product.
While in research settings I know the output will likely be autoclaved and disposed of, as with the contents of the vial. But are there many scenarios in which the outlet is actually waste?
In our case, the continuous culture (chemostat, turbidostat, mobidostat) is used to establish a steady state cultivation. Hence, broth removed from the vial becomes “waste”, whereas the data and broth inside the vial (that gets sampled) becomes “product”.
I think a great one-fits-all standarization would be to have “inlet stream” and “outlet stream or effluent” instead of “media” and “waste”, respectively. Thiw way, the “outlet stream or effluent” can be defined afterwards as “waste effluent” (if discarded) and “product effluent” (if collected).
This is a great point of discussion, so I would like to hear what you think @Martin
Yes, without the need for multiple different labels:
In
In 2
Out
Would probably make most sense.
Effluent unfortunately also can have negative connotations. We call the output of a wastewater treatment works effluent, but I would never call the output of a potable water treatment works effluent.