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A High Productivity Bioreactor for Microalgae Cultivation

Found a site in which the author has put forward details of his new bioreactor design. Thought it could be useful for some of you

Key Words: micro algae, spirulina, haematococcus, astaxanthin

Brief Introduction by the author: Cyanobacterium Spirulina and green algae Haematococcus spp. are of microscopic plants, although they are biologically adaptable to a wide range of warm environments, the establishment and proliferation of themselves with high productivity depending on selective nutrients, the suitable growth temperatures, and in need of optimizing the light intensity etc. However, these essential requirements are hardly met in the open pond systems. In view of the limitations and shortcomings as low biomass productivity, unavoidable contaminations which existed insuperable for the pond culture systems, bioscientists and biotron-engineers in the last decades had developed certain forms of closed transparent photo-bioreactors for the mass production of micro-algae. Although most of them could be used to some certain degree for the experimental algal culture, yet there still existed some hindrances of operational problems and even serious growth limitations. Among these problems are primarily the oxygen build-up in the growth medium and the overheating inside the tubes by the sunrays in summer seasons.

With these considerations, the author after several years trials and improvements, had invented and manufactured a totally different photobioreactor which aimed at for the commercial production of Spirulina or Haematocuccus spp. in particular, and other photophilic micro-organisms in general. The functional advantages for this vertical glass photo-bioreactor (VGPR), in addition to its high productivity, presented mainly as that it had basically overcome those growth limitations, i.e. the overheating of the cultural medium, the high tension of the dissolved oxygen (D.O.) and the problem of algal staining on the tubular inner walls which often existed in those previous forms. The structural features of the VGPR could illustrated as follows:

The whole set consisted of three parts, i.e.

1)       The coiled large sized glass tube system that functions as the solar radiation    receiver and with a large volume of algal culture medium(1000l/unit) circulated within it;

2)      The glass towers, by connected closely to the tubular section that acts dual roles:

a) for the extraction of the D.O. in the growth medium ,

b) regulation of the growth parameters for attaining an optimized condition and,

3)      The pump system, which propels the medium circulating in the VGPR with least injuries to the cells.

See the site NewBioreactor for further info about the bioreactor and the author’s contact details

Nature gave us oil from algae; perhaps we should try Nature’s way again

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About Oilgae – Oilgae – Oil & Biodiesel from Algae has a focus on biodiesel production from algae while also discussing alternative energy in general. Algae present an exciting possibility as a feedstock for biodiesel, and when you realise that oil was originally formed from algae – among other related plants – you think “Hey! Why not oil again from algae!”

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