Carbon dioxide can serve as a source of carbon for photosynthetic cell cultures, but it must reside in the
aqueous phase prior to uptake. Carbon dioxide is a gas at room temperature and pressure, and its solubility
in water is very low. It resides in the aqueous phase as four different species, carbon dioxide, CO2; carbonic
acid, H2CO3; bicarbonate ion, HCO3
-; and carbonate ion, CO3
=, whose equilibrium concentrations are pH
dependent. With these factors taken into account, a model has been developed to allow the pH profile of an
aqueous phase, undergoing a sudden application of bubbles containing carbon dioxide, to be used as a measure
of the transient dissolved carbon dioxide concentration in a reactor. Experimentally measured carbon dioxide
profiles were used to calculate the overall volumetric mass transfer coefficients for carbon dioxide into a
well-mixed reactor as a function of temperature, stirring speed, and aeration rate. Finally, an empirical
correlation is provided to predict the overall volumetric mass transfer coefficient of carbon dioxide as a
function of these three operating variables.