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Dynamic modelling of high biomass density cultivation and biohydrogen production in different scales of flat plate photobioreactors
Author(s) -
Zhang Dongda,
Dechatiwongse Pongsathorn,
del RioChaa Ehecatl Antonio,
Maitland Geoffrey C.,
Hellgardt Klaus,
Vassiliadis Vassilios S.
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.25661
Subject(s) - photobioreactor , biohydrogen , biomass (ecology) , environmental science , hydrogen production , pulp and paper industry , biofuel , work (physics) , production (economics) , bioreactor , chemistry , botany , agronomy , hydrogen , microbiology and biotechnology , engineering , biology , mechanical engineering , organic chemistry , macroeconomics , economics
This paper investigates the scaling‐up of cyanobacterial biomass cultivation and biohydrogen production from laboratory to industrial scale. Two main aspects are investigated and presented, which to the best of our knowledge have never been addressed, namely the construction of an accurate dynamic model to simulate cyanobacterial photo‐heterotrophic growth and biohydrogen production and the prediction of the maximum biomass and hydrogen production in different scales of photobioreactors. To achieve the current goals, experimental data obtained from a laboratory experimental setup are fitted by a dynamic model. Based on the current model, two key original findings are made in this work. First, it is found that selecting low‐chlorophyll mutants is an efficient way to increase both biomass concentration and hydrogen production particularly in a large scale photobioreactor. Second, the current work proposes that the width of industrial scale photobioreactors should not exceed 0.20 m for biomass cultivation and 0.05 m for biohydrogen production, as severe light attenuation can be induced in the reactor beyond this threshold. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2015;112: 2429–2438. © 2015 The Authors. Biotechnology and Bioengineering Published by Wiley Peiodicals, Inc.