Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, Vol.53, No.27, 11121-11136, 2014
First Principles Model of a Tubular Photobioreactor for Microalgal Production
This paper outlines and extends a dynamic model for microalgal production in outdoor tubular photobioreactors. A first principle based model, which takes into account both spatial and temporal gradients for the main culture variables, is presented. A previous model has been refined and extended in order to represent the main distributed phenomena, incorporating the dynamic effects related to culture temperature. Thereby, calibration and validation tests have been performed in an outdoor industrial tubular photobioreactor, showing successful results. The developed model considers both fluid dynamics and biological phenomena. This work summarizes the required steps to obtain a biological model from knowledge acquired in previous works. Finally, in view of the obtained results, conclusions about the limitations of the developed model are drawn, as well as its main uses and applications, describing a simulation example which proves how a simple control of culture conditions, such as temperature and pH, allows obtaining a higher biomass production rate.