Development of virtual photobioreactor for microalgae culture considering turbulent flow and flashing light effect

Energy dissipation is an essential mechanism to sustain the viability of plants: The physiological limits of improved photosynthesis

“…The basic idea is that plant productivity could be higher if the "wasted energy" could be used for growth. Especially in algae, very high productivity has been postulated in optimized and adequately engineered photobioreactors (Posten, 2009;Sato et al, 2010). However, the physiology of the cells shows the real biological and physical limits.…”

Improving performance of flat-plate photobioreactors by installation of novel internal mixers optimized with computational fluid dynamics

“…A Lagrangian particle-tracking model was applied to simulate the trajectory of the microalgal cell by introducing a mass-less and volume-less particle to the simulation (Sato et al, 2010). The particle was depicted as a sphere with a diameter of 10 lm, given that the real microalgal cells of Chlorella pyrenoidosa are spherical with a diameter ranging from 5 lm to 15 lm, and any mass effect can be neglected when it is considered that microalgae have the same density as the fluid (Pruvost et al, 2008).…”

The Enhancement of Photosynthesis by Fluctuating Light

“…A further way of generating turbulence in the photobioreactor is to provide a gassing device that achieves the desired effect at an appropriate gassing rate. The provision of flowconducting intervals can also improve the flashing-light effect if a defined frequency is established for the illumination time (6509188,2001) The flashing light effect should be considered because turbulent flow in the reactor gives microalgae a chance to come close to the irradiated surface in the opaque medium at an irregular frequency, and this intermittent illumination enhances photosynthesis of the algae (Sato et al, 2010). In high cell-density culture, a light gradient inside the photobioreactor will always occur due to light absorption and mutual shading by the cells.…”