Mixotrophic Production of Microalgae in Pilot-Scale Photobioreactors
Researchers from Canada have conducted an experiment to find the practicability of mixotrophic production of microalgae in pilot scale photobioreactors. The study was conducted with Scenedesmus obliquus, a species which has the ability to assimilate a wide variety of carbon sources.
Initially autotrophic experiments were conducted to obtain behaviour and then mixotrophic experiments were conducted. The results showed that bacterial contamination could be an issue, which could be overcome by exploiting some intrinsic dynamic properties of the algae. In addition, attention could be given to phosphate and sulphate ions for further optimization.