21
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      An Interactive Tool for Outdoor Computer Controlled Cultivation of Microalgae in a Tubular Photobioreactor System

      research-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          This paper describes an interactive virtual laboratory for experimenting with an outdoor tubular photobioreactor (henceforth PBR for short). This virtual laboratory it makes possible to: (a) accurately reproduce the structure of a real plant (the PBR designed and built by the Department of Chemical Engineering of the University of Almería, Spain); (b) simulate a generic tubular PBR by changing the PBR geometry; (c) simulate the effects of changing different operating parameters such as the conditions of the culture (pH, biomass concentration, dissolved O 2, inyected CO 2, etc.); (d) simulate the PBR in its environmental context; it is possible to change the geographic location of the system or the solar irradiation profile; (e) apply different control strategies to adjust different variables such as the CO 2 injection, culture circulation rate or culture temperature in order to maximize the biomass production; (f) simulate the harvesting. In this way, users can learn in an intuitive way how productivity is affected by any change in the design. It facilitates the learning of how to manipulate essential variables for microalgae growth to design an optimal PBR. The simulator has been developed with Easy Java Simulations, a freeware open-source tool developed in Java, specifically designed for the creation of interactive dynamic simulations.

          Related collections

          Most cited references34

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: not found

          Photobioreactors for mass cultivation of algae.

          Algae have attracted much interest for production of foods, bioactive compounds and also for their usefulness in cleaning the environment. In order to grow and tap the potentials of algae, efficient photobioreactors are required. Although a good number of photobioreactors have been proposed, only a few of them can be practically used for mass production of algae. One of the major factors that limits their practical application in algal mass cultures is mass transfer. Thus, a thorough understanding of mass transfer rates in photobioreactors is necessary for efficient operation of mass algal cultures. In this review article, various photobioreactors that are very promising for mass production of algae are discussed.
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: not found
            • Article: not found

            Commercial application of microalgae other than as biofuels: a brief review

              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              Tubular photobioreactor design for algal cultures.

              Principles of fluid mechanics, gas-liquid mass transfer, and irradiance controlled algal growth are integrated into a method for designing tubular photobioreactors in which the culture is circulated by an airlift pump. A 0.2 m(3) photobioreactor designed using the proposed approach was proved in continuous outdoor culture of the microalga Phaeodactylum tricornutum. The culture performance was assessed under various conditions of irradiance, dilution rates and liquid velocities through the tubular solar collector. A biomass productivity of 1.90 g l(-1) d(-1) (or 32 g m(-2) d(-1)) could be obtained at a dilution rate of 0.04 h(-1). Photoinhibition was observed during hours of peak irradiance; the photosynthetic activity of the cells recovered a few hours later. Linear liquid velocities of 0.50 and 0.35 m s(-1) in the solar collector gave similar biomass productivities, but the culture collapsed at lower velocities. The effect of dissolved oxygen concentration on productivity was quantified in indoor conditions; dissolved oxygen levels higher or lower than air saturation values reduced productivity. Under outdoor conditions, for given levels of oxygen supersaturation, the productivity decline was greater outdoors than indoors, suggesting that under intense outdoor illumination photooxidation contributed to loss of productivity in comparison with productivity loss due to oxygen inhibition alone. Dissolved oxygen values at the outlet of solar collector tube were up to 400% of air saturation.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Journal
                Sensors (Basel)
                Sensors (Basel)
                Sensors (Basel, Switzerland)
                Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI)
                1424-8220
                March 2014
                06 March 2014
                : 14
                : 3
                : 4466-4483
                Affiliations
                Department of Computer Sciences and Automatic Control, UNED, C/Juan del Rosal, 16, 28040 Madrid, Spain; E-Mails: jsanchez@ 123456dia.uned.es (J.S.); nduro@ 123456dia.uned.es (N.D.); sebas@ 123456dia.uned.es (S.D.-C.); mguinaldo@ 123456dia.uned.es (M.G.); sdormido@ 123456dia.uned.es (S.D.)
                Author notes
                [* ] Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: raquel@ 123456dia.uned.es ; Tel.: +34-91-398-7192; Fax: +34-91-398-7690.
                Article
                sensors-14-04466
                10.3390/s140304466
                4003952
                24662450
                4df0209a-1fa1-4125-8a71-6cf469e17498
                © 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

                This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).

                History
                : 13 January 2014
                : 21 February 2014
                : 04 March 2014
                Categories
                Article

                Biomedical engineering
                photobioreactors,biocontrol,biotechnology,laboratory education,simulators,interactive programs,modeling,java

                Comments

                Comment on this article