Abstract

ALFARO VIVES, Orlando Gines; JUANTORENA UGAS, Alina  and  PROENZA YERO, Roger. Dynamic model for the large-scale mixotrophic culture of microalgae and bacteria in a thin layer photo bioreactor. RTQ [online]. 2021, vol.41, n.2, pp. 440-462.  Epub July 30, 2021. ISSN 2224-6185.

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The cultivation of microalgae has important interests from the economic point of view with the production of medicines, antiseptics, protein-vitamin supplements and biofuels such as hydrogen, ethanol and biodiesel, as well as for bio remediation of the environment contributing to the mitigation of CO2 in the atmosphere and wastewater treatment. In this work, a dynamic model is presented that describes the symbiotic growth of the microalgae Chlorella vulgaris and bacteria, in an open-air thin-film photobioreactor of 3,500 m2, used for the treatment of liquid pig waste. A novel procedure is developed to estimate the pH value and a new kinetic equation for the growth of microalgae is proposed. MATLAB software R2009b was used to develop a program that allows estimating the temperature of the culture suspension and the variation of the process parameters (concentration of algae and bacteria, concentration of organic matter in terms of biochemical oxygen demand, pH, concentration of dissolved oxygen, dissolved carbon dioxide concentration, dissolved ammonia nitrogen concentration, and dissolved ortho-phosphates). The correlation between the experimental process parameters and those obtained with the program is demonstrated, with an error of less than 10% in all cases. The productivity per unit of cultivation area obtained with the program is compared with the real data obtained and the maximum error is ± 4%.

Keywords : Chlorella vulgaris; porcine liquid waste; thin layer photo-bioreactor; dynamic model.

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