Enhancement of microalgal growth by using perfluorocarbon as oxygen carrier

The contribution of green microalgae has been recognized in the production of useful products such as chemicals, fatty acids, proteins, carotenoids, pigments, polysaccharides, and pharmaceuticals. One of the challenges to the development of profitable bioproduct markets is the design, development, modeling, and evaluation of cost-effective production systems. The photobioreactors for microalgae can be either open or closed systems in large-scale production. In various situations, it has been reported that closed photobioreactors offer many advantages over open systems. These advantages include lower contamination, higher biomass densities, and better process control. Nevertheless, for the scale-up of enclosed tubular photobioreactors, the accumulation of oxygen as a photosynthetic byproduct has been a major limitation because it severely inhibits growth of microalgae. In this study, we use the distinctive feature of liquid perfluorocarbons (PFCs) as a carrier that efficiently removes the accumulated oxygen from algal medium phase in the spinner culture flasks. The results show the growth kinetics of microalgae cultivated by this approach is significantly improved.