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Dynamic modelling of high biomass density cultivation and biohydrogen production in different scales of flat plate photobioreactors.


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Authors

Zhang, Dongda 
Dechatiwongse, Pongsathorn 
Del Rio-Chanona, Ehecatl Antonio 
Maitland, Geoffrey C 
Hellgardt, Klaus 

Abstract

This paper investigates the scaling-up of cyanobacterial biomass cultivation and biohydrogen production from laboratory to industrial scale. Two main aspects are investigated and presented, which to the best of our knowledge have never been addressed, namely the construction of an accurate dynamic model to simulate cyanobacterial photo-heterotrophic growth and biohydrogen production and the prediction of the maximum biomass and hydrogen production in different scales of photobioreactors. To achieve the current goals, experimental data obtained from a laboratory experimental setup are fitted by a dynamic model. Based on the current model, two key original findings are made in this work. First, it is found that selecting low-chlorophyll mutants is an efficient way to increase both biomass concentration and hydrogen production particularly in a large scale photobioreactor. Second, the current work proposes that the width of industrial scale photobioreactors should not exceed 0.20 m for biomass cultivation and 0.05 m for biohydrogen production, as severe light attenuation can be induced in the reactor beyond this threshold.

Description

Keywords

biohydrogen production, biomass cultivation, dynamic simulation, light attenuation, photo-heterotrophic growth, photobioreactor, Biomass, Cyanobacteria, Hydrogen, Models, Theoretical, Photobioreactors

Journal Title

Biotechnol Bioeng

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0006-3592
1097-0290

Volume Title

112

Publisher

Wiley
Sponsorship
D. Zhang gratefully acknowledges the support from his family. P. Dechatiwongse is supported by a scholarship from the Royal Thai Government, Thailand. The Solar Hydrogen Project was funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), project reference EP/F00270X/1. E. A. del Rio-Chanona is funded by CONACyT scholarship No. 522530 from the Secretariat of Public Education and the Mexican government.