Airlift Photobioreactor for Microalgae Growth from Emissions: Mathematical Modeling and Simulation

Abstract A mathematical model is proposed to describe and simulate microalgae growth from emissions in an outdoor airlift photobioreactor. To this end, the influences of the concentration of total nitrogen, total phosphorus, CO2 present in the exhaust gases, temperature, and light intensity were considered in biomass production. The model was tested under different experimental conditions with biomass concentrations ranging from 2 g L−1 to 4.5 g L−1. Furthermore, the accuracy of the airlift photobioreactor simulations was greater than 90 %. Thus, the developed model was able to satisfactorily describe the experimental data, so that it can be applied in other microalgae systems for optimizing biomass production, both on laboratory and pilot scales.