Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 25, 2025
Optimize Flue Gas Settings to Promote Microalgae Growth in Photobioreactors via Computer Simulations
Published on: October 1, 2013
Enhancing CO2 photo-biochemical conversion in a newly-designed attached photobioreactor characterized by stacked
Yahui Sun1, Guotao Yu2, Gang Xiao3
1Engineering Laboratory for Energy System Process Conversion & Emission Control Technology of Jiangsu Province, School of Energy and Mechanical Engineering, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China; School of Life Sciences, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China; Key Laboratory of Low-grade Energy Utilization Technologies and Systems (Chongqing University), Ministry of Education of China, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China.
Abstract:
Aiming at alleviating the adverse effects on attached microalgae biofilm growth caused by heterogeneous spatial light distributions within the attached cultivation photobioreactors (PBRs), an innovative PBR integrated with stacked horizontal planar waveguide modules (SHPW-PBR) was proposed in this work. Different from the conventional PBR, the emergent light from the external LED light bars were guided and evenly redistributed within the SHPW-PBR by the planar waveguides and hence provided light energy for microalgae cells photoautotrophic growth. In comparison with the control PBR, the average light intensity illuminating the attached Chlorella vulgaris biofilm in the SHPW-PBR was elevated by 204.11% and contributed to a 145.20% improvement on areal C. vulgaris biofilm production. Thereafter, responses of attached C. vulgaris biofilm growth in the SHPW-PBR to various light intensities were evaluated and the maximum areal C. vulgaris biofilm density reached 90.43 g m-2 under the light intensity of 136 μmol m-2 s-1 after 9 days cultivation. Furthermore, the SHPW-PBR can be easily scaled-up by increasing the quantity of the stacked planar waveguide modules and thus shows great potential in biofilm-based biomass production.
