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Evaluating algal growth performance and water use efficiency of pilot‐scale revolving algal biofilm (RAB) culture systems
Author(s) -
Gross Martin,
Mascarenhas Ver,
Wen Zhiyou
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
biotechnology and bioengineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.136
H-Index - 189
eISSN - 1097-0290
pISSN - 0006-3592
DOI - 10.1002/bit.25618
Subject(s) - raceway , environmental science , rab , algae fuel , environmental engineering , pulp and paper industry , biology , biodiesel , engineering , gtpase , biochemistry , structural engineering , finite element method , catalysis
A Revolving Algal Biofilm (RAB) growth system in which algal cells are attached to a flexible material rotating between liquid and gas phases has been developed. In this work, different configurations of RAB systems were developed at pilot‐scale by retrofitting the attachment materials to a raceway pond (2000‐L with 8.5 m 2 footprint area) and a trough reservoir (150 L with 3.5 m 2 footprint area). The algal growth performance and chemical composition, as well as the water evaporative loss and specific water consumption were evaluated over a period of nine months in a greenhouse environment near Boone, Iowa USA. Additionally a raceway pond was run in parallel, which served as a control. On average the raceway‐based RAB and the trough‐based RAB outperformed the control pond by 309% and 697%, respectively. A maximum productivity of 46.8 g m −2 day −1 was achieved on the trough‐based RAB system. The evaporative water loss of the RAB system was modeled based on an energy balance analysis and was experimentally validated. While the RAB system, particularly the trough‐based RAB, had higher water evaporative loss, the specific water consumption per unit of biomass produced was only 26% (raceway‐based RAB) and 7% (trough‐based RAB) of that of the control pond. Collectively, this research shows that the RAB system is an efficient algal culture system and has great potential to commercially produce microalgae with high productivity and efficient water use. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2015;112: 2040–2050. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.