College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, North Third Ring Road 15, Chaoyang District, Mail Box 268, Beijing, 100029, People's Republic of China.
College of Life Science and Technology, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029, People's Republic of China.
Bioprocess Biosyst Eng. 2017 Dec;40(12):1743-1751. doi: 10.1007/s00449-017-1829-4. Epub 2017 Aug 29.
Industrial-scale microalgal cultivation for food, feedstocks and biofuel production is limited by several engineering factors, such as cultivation systems. As a closed microalgal growth system, tubular photobioreactors are the most preferred ones in the mass algae production. In this work, microalgal cultivation and hydrodynamic characterization using a novel tubular photobioreactor equipped with helical blade rotors (HBRs) were investigated, with the aid of computational fluid dynamics and cultivation experiments to evaluate the effect of HBRs on the performance of tubular photobioreactor and growth of the Chlorella sp. The results showed that the use of HBRs in tubular photobioreactors would result in swirl flow and increase of radial velocity and circumferential velocity; it also indicated that the HBRs would enable microalgal cells to move forward helically and to be shuttled alternatively between the light zone and the dark zone. This has led to the faster growth rate of Chlorella sp. and no attachment on the tube surface in the tubular photobioreactor during the whole cultivation cycle. In conclusion, the HBRs could improve the performance of tubular photobioreactors and thus impact positively on the cultivation of microalgae cells for biotechnological industry.
工业规模的微藻培养用于食品、饲料和生物燃料生产受到多种工程因素的限制，例如培养系统。作为一种封闭的微藻生长系统，管式光生物反应器是大规模藻类生产中最受欢迎的一种。在这项工作中，使用配备螺旋桨转子的新型管式光生物反应器进行了微藻培养和水动力特性研究，借助计算流体力学和培养实验来评估 HBR 对管式光生物反应器性能和小球藻生长的影响。结果表明，在管式光生物反应器中使用 HBR 会导致产生旋流并增加径向速度和周向速度；还表明 HBR 可以使微藻细胞沿螺旋方向前进，并在光区和暗区之间交替穿梭。这导致了小球藻的更快生长速度，并且在整个培养周期中，在管式光生物反应器中没有藻细胞附着在管壁上。总之，HBR 可以改善管式光生物反应器的性能，从而对生物技术产业中的微藻细胞培养产生积极影响。
