Design and evaluation of a helical tubular photobioreactor for microalgae production [electronic resource].

Includes references.

Photosynthetic microalgae are important bioresource for producing desired and environmentally safe products including biodiesel production as third generation biofuels. Photobioreactor play important role in this process. Designing and manufacture the bioreactor for photocatalysis is still challenging at present time due to the important factors that must be closely considered with regard to light requirements. The aim of the present study was to design and evaluate a helical-tubular photobioreactor for algae production. The design considerations included light intensity controller circuit, surface-to-volume ratio, power required of both air pump and mixing pump to reach up the optimum operating parameters. Experiments were
conducted to optimize light intensity and light/dark duration cycle. The photobioreactor performance was evaluated in terms of biomass productivity, lipid productivity, carbon capture efficiency and energy balance of algae production system. The experimental results reveal that the helical-tubular photobioreactor is recommended to be used under light intensity of 8 kLux and light/dark duration cycle of 18:6 h to obtain the highest biomass productivity of 1.80 kg.day-1 and lipid productivity 432
g.day-1 with carbon capture efficiency 87%. The manufactured photobioreactor is capable of produce 4.74 kWday which is equivalent to 4.39 kWday of net energy output.

Summary in Arabic.