RRC ID 32378
Author Yoo JJ, Choi SP, Kim JY, Chang WS, Sim SJ.
Title Development of thin-film photo-bioreactor and its application to outdoor culture of microalgae.
Journal Bioprocess Biosyst Eng
Abstract Photosynthetic microalgae have received much attention as a microbial source of diverse useful biomaterials through CO(2) fixation and various types of photo-bioreactors have been developed for efficient microalgal cultivation. Herein, we developed a novel thin-film photo-bioreactor, which was made of cast polypropylene film, considering outdoor mass cultivation. To develop optimal design of photo-bioreactor, we tested performance of three shapes of thin-film photo-bioreactors (flat, horizontal and vertical tubular shapes) and various parts in the bioreactor. Collectively, vertical tubular bioreactor with H/D ratio 6:1 and cylindrical stainless steel spargers showed the most outstanding performance. Furthermore, the photo-bioreactor was successfully applied to the cultivation of other microalgae such as Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and Chlorella vulgaris. The scalability of photo-bioreactor was confirmed by gradually increasing culture volume from 4 to 25 L and the biomass productivity of each reactor was quite consistent (0.05-0.07 g/L/day) during the cultivation of H. pluvialis under indoor and outdoor conditions. Especially, we also achieved dry cell weight of 4.64 g/L and astaxanthin yield of 218.16 mg/L through long-term cultivation (100 days) under outdoor condition in 15 L photo-bioreactor using Haematococcus pluvialis, which means that the astaxanthin yield from outdoor cultivation is equal or superior to that obtained from controlled indoor condition. Therefore, these results indicate that we can apply this approach to development of optimal photo-bioreactor for the large-scale culture of microalgae and production of useful biomaterials under outdoor condition.
Volume 36(6)
Pages 729-36
Published 2013-6-1
DOI 10.1007/s00449-013-0898-2
PMID 23361185
MeSH Biomass* Bioreactors* Chlorophyta / growth & development* Chlorophyta / metabolism Xanthophylls / biosynthesis
IF 2.419
Times Cited 19
WOS Category ENGINEERING, CHEMICAL BIOTECHNOLOGY & APPLIED MICROBIOLOGY
Resource
Algae NIES-144