Predicting Hydrodynamic and Heat Transfer Effects of Sparger Geometry and Placement Within a Column Photobioreactor Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

Abstract

This research investigates the effects of the sparger on flow patterns and heat transfer within a column photobioreactor (PBR) using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). This study compares two types of spargers: a porous membrane, which occupies the entire floor of the reactor, and a single sparger, which is located along the centerline of the PBR floor. The PBR is modeled using the Lagrangian-Eulerian approach. The objective of this research is to predict the performance of PBRs using CFD models, which can be used to improve the design of PBRs used to grow microalgae that are used to produce biofuels and bioproducts.

Modeling and Simulation of Photobioreactors with Computational Fluid Dynamics—A Comprehensive Review

“…The purpose of the listed models covers a variety of applications, including the mechanistic understanding of photobioreactors [17][18][19][20][21], investigations on the flashing-light effect [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31], photobioreactor design optimization [21,22,29,[32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42] and optimization of operating conditions [26,[34][35][36][43][44][45]. The different goals of modeling explain why the considered transport phenomena and physical processes differ among the listed works.…”

“…Due to the variety of pneumatically agitated photobioreactor designs, modeling of gas-liquid flows is an important task. The literature includes models for two-phase gasliquid flows [17][18][19]25,[39][40][41][42]44,45,125,135], solid-liquid flows [21,23,24,34,[36][37][38]126] or three-phase gas-solid-liquid flows [19,[26][27][28][29][30][31]136]. While the continuous liquid phase is always treated as an Eulerian continuum, the disperse phase(s) is considered either in an Eulerian or Lagrangian sense [137].…”

Advanced CFD model of multiphase photobioreactors for microalgal derived biomass production

“…In terms of review multiphase CFD models, the review will summary the applications of CFD in simulation of mixing and mass transfer in PBRs in the last decade. It can be seen from Table 2.1 that CFD simulations have been 5 applied to many kinds of photobioreactors, such as raceway reactor (Xu et al, 2014;Hreiz et al, 2014;Prussi et al, 2014;Park and Li, 2015;Huang et al, 2015;Zeng et al,2016), flat plate (Shu et al, 2010;Zhang et al, 2012;Wang et al, 2014;Huang et al, 2014;2015;, airlift (Luo and Al-Dahhan, 2011;Li et al, 2012;Massart et al, 2014;Soman and Shastri, 2015), bubble column (Mortuza et al, 2012;Seo e al., 2012;Nauha and Alopaeus, 2013;2015;Gerdes et al, 2014;Gerdes et al, 2014;Bitog et al, 2014;Bari et al, 2014;2015), tubular (Moberg et al, 2012;Zhang et al, 2013;Gómez-Pérez, 2015;Cheng et al, 2016), stirred tank (Zhang, 2013;Delafosse et al, 2014;Delafosse et al, 2015;Krujatz et al, 2015), torus (Pruvost et al 2006;, virtual (Sato et al, 2010), Taylor-Couette (Gao et al, 2015a;2016a) and so on. CFD simulation was mainly used to design and optimize novel reactors or internals by studying the flow hydrodynamics, mass transfer and algae cell trajectory.…”

“…The gas phase can exchange mass, momentum and energy with the liquid phase. This approach has been used to study the liquid-gas flow by several researchers (Sato et al, 2010;Mortuza et al, 2012;Seo e al., 2012;Moberg et al, 2012;Bari et al, 2014;Bitog et al, 2014;Gerdes et al, 2014;Massart et al, 2014;Bari et al, 2015). In the Eulerian-Eulerian approach, both phases are treated as interpenetrating continuum and continuum equations are solved for both phases with an appropriate interaction.…”

“…The dispersed turbulence model is commonly used, where the liquid phase turbulence is modeled using either an eddy viscosity model or a Reynolds stress model, while the gas phase is assumed to be laminar due to low flow rates usually employed. It can be seen from (Mortuza et al, 2012;Seo e al., 2012;Nauha and Alopaeus, 2013;2015;Gerdes et al, 2014;Gerdes et al, 2014;Bari et al, 2014;2015), airlift (Luo and Al-Dahhan, 2011;Massart et al, 2014;Soman and Shastri, 2015), flat plate (Shu et al, 2010;Zhang et al, 2012;Huang et al, 2014;Wang et al, 2014; and raceway reactor (Xu et al, 2014;Hreiz et al, 2014;Prussi et al, 2014;Park and Li, 2015;Huang et al, 2015c;Zeng et al,2016), the standard k-ε turbulence model and its variants were widely used to model the liquid turbulence because of its simplicity and lesser computational expensive. Sometimes the k-ε turbulence model was modified to account for the bubble induced turbulence (Luo and Al-Dahhan, 2011;Li et al, 2012).…”