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Mixing characteristics, cell trajectories, pressure loss and shear stress of tubular photobioreactor with inserted self‐rotating helical rotors
Author(s) -
Yan Hua,
Guan Changfeng,
Jia Yuchuan,
Huang Xinxue,
Yang Weimin
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of chemical technology and biotechnology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.64
H-Index - 117
eISSN - 1097-4660
pISSN - 0268-2575
DOI - 10.1002/jctb.5484
Subject(s) - mechanics , photobioreactor , rotor (electric) , materials science , shear stress , mixing (physics) , inlet , computational fluid dynamics , stress (linguistics) , mechanical engineering , engineering , physics , waste management , biofuel , linguistics , philosophy , quantum mechanics
BACKGROUND Tubular photobioreactors (TPBRs) have great potential in culturing microalgae, but their poor mixing properties make it difficult to increase the surface productivity. In this work, a TPBR with inserted self‐rotating helical rotors, which have been under study for a decade, was designed. RESULTS This paper aimed to show hydrodynamic behaviors of gas–liquid in a TPBR with inserted self‐rotating helical rotors by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and visualization experiments. It can be concluded that by assembling self‐rotating helical rotors into the TPBR, very remarkable mixing and particle cycle frequencies were achieved. Besides, the influences of rotor lead and liquid inlet velocity on the swirl number, the gas and liquid average circumferential velocities, pressure loss, cell trajectories and shear stress were also investigated. The best choice was to select a rotor lead of 150 mm and a liquid inlet velocity of 0.4–0.5 m s ‐1 for microalgae with strong shear force tolerance. Microalgae cultivation experiments verified that helical rotors had a positive effect on biomass productivity. CONCLUSION The results indicated that assembling the self‐rotating helical rotors into TPBR was a feasible and effective method to improve the mixing performance and microalgae productivity. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry