Productivity analysis in tubular photobioreactors using a dynamic photosynthesis model coupled to computational fluid dynamics particle tracking.

Autor: Fernández Del Olmo P; Institute for Research in Agriculture and Fisheries, Junta de Andalucía, E04720 Almería, Spain., Acién FG; Department of Chemical Engineering, Universidad de Almería / Centre (CIESOL), Joint Centre University of Almería-CIEMAT, Ctra. Sacramento s/n, 04120 Almería, Spain., Fernández-Sevilla JM; Department of Chemical Engineering, Universidad de Almería / Centre (CIESOL), Joint Centre University of Almería-CIEMAT, Ctra. Sacramento s/n, 04120 Almería, Spain. Electronic address: jfernand@ual.es.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Bioresource technology [Bioresour Technol] 2022 Jan; Vol. 344 (Pt B), pp. 126277. Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Nov 06.
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.126277
Abstrakt: Tubular photobioreactors (TPBRs) are closed devices used for the mass culture of microalgae. TPBRs are supposed to be well-mixed, but the influence of their specific fluid dynamics in photosynthesis efficiency has never been studied in detail. Here, we use Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) coupled to a dynamic photosynthesis model to analyze the efficiency of the photosynthetic response in the loop of TPBRs of different sizes (14, 24, 44, 64, and 84 mm) and circulation velocities (0.4 to 1 m s -1 ). The results show that only the smallest diameters cause enough radial mixing for a photosynthesis-enhancing light regime (integration factor Γ = 0.199 for D = 14 mm and v = 1 m s -1 ) while high circulation velocities in larger diameters (up to 1 m s -1 ) increase operating costs but do not enhance photosynthetic productivity. It is also shown the relevance of the characteristic frequency of the strain (β), which is crucial for high productivity.
(Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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