Reduction of carbon dioxide emission from flue gas with microalgae cultivation

Abstract Nannochloris sp. was continuously cultivated in a growth chamber of 1,000 mm depth with built-in optical fibers, and studies were made on improvement of the production rate per unit area of incident ray and the photosynthetic efficiency. The amount of the microalgae that multiplied in a day at their density of 0.3 to 0.5 dry g/ρ was harvested. A halogen lamp was used as the light source. Operation was continued for four weeks during which 66 dry g/m 2 daily on an average basis was produced and the photosynthetic efficiency was 4.1% on an average based on photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) with wavelengths between 400 and 700μm. The operation was stable with little decrease in productivity due to the adhesion of microalga to the optical fibers.