Transcript Algae Growth - Wayne State University

Algae Growth
9-5-07
CO2 requirements for Growth
• Algae is about 50% carbon=>1.8kg CO2 to
produce 1 kg algae
• Concentration of CO2 in bulk should be
around 65μM with a pH=8.5 for some
marine and saline water diatoms.
Oxygen inhibition of the growth
• Oxygen levels above air saturation
(0.2247 mol O2/m3) could inhibit.
• Elevated conc. of O2 combined with high
levels of irradiance can lead to photooxidation.
• In practice the minimum feasible level of
dissolved O2 is 21% of air saturation since
the nutrient feeds tends to be in
equilibrium with the atmosphere.
Patent Review
• Most patents on PBR are for tubular air-lift type
PBRs.
• A couple of plate-like PBRs have be patented.
• Only one membrane PBR, the OH PBR has
been patented.
• Most of the PBRs were designed for the removal
of contaminants like heavy metals and CO2, a
few were designed to make fine chemicals.
BIOKING’s Algae Oil
BIOKING’s Biodiesel
Future Work
• Develop growth model based on CO2, O2
and light intensity. Will probably be a
modification of the model used by
Greenfuel to apply to a membrane PBR.
• Need to choose algae strain to use in
model, probably will be Botryococcus
braunii ~40-60% oil.
• Find the answers to the rest of the
questions Prof. Ng sent.