ANALYSIS OF Sf/V RATIO OF PHOTOBIOREACTORS LINKED WITH ALGAL PHYSIOLOGY

Summary: Cleaning the waste gases from coal fired plants, burners, and anaerobic bioreactors are major concerns nowadays. CO 2 liberation in the atmosphere is a huge problem, and the only visible cost-effective alternative is sequestrating it by using high density cultures in modern closed photobioreactors (PBRs). One of the most important criteria for evaluation of PBR capacity is surface area–to-volume ratio (S f /V). This work combined this criterion with algal physiology and predicted the biomass concentration in closed PBR as a function of light availability-S f /V at a given algal physiological state. Several PBR designs were chosen from the literature on the basis of their S f /V ratio. Mathematical analysis was performed in order to predict the maximum biomass concentration where specific growth rate was a function of S f /V ratio, as well as to predict PBR’s potential to support high density cultures.