Development and validation of a screening system for characterizing and modeling biomass production from cyanobacteria and microalgae: Application to Arthrospira platensis and Haematococcus pluvialis

Abstract

Abstract A miniaturized, small-scale photobioreactor (PBR) known as EOSS2-PBR (Efficient Overproducing Screening System photobioreactor) has been developed to characterize microalgal growth under controlled conditions. As with similar systems, EOSS2-PBR allows the screening of either culture conditions or species performance, but it is also specially designed to provide high levels of light absorption control conditions in the culture volume. First, an experimental characterization was carried on to (i) determine operating conditions to adjust optimal parameters controlling EOSS2-PBR performance, such as thermal behavior of PBR, and (ii) ensure that no limitation other than light occurred to control the system and assure high reliable productivities. EOSS2-PBR performance was then characterized by Arthrospira platensis and Haematococcus pluvialis cultures. By accurately relating growth to light transfer conditions, this facilitates the setting of kinetic growth models, which is illustrated in this work for the cyanobacterium Arthrospira platensis. Besides, continuous cultures of Haematococcus pluvialis were run in both EOSS2-PBR and 1L Airlift flat-panel PBR under the same culture conditions to confirm reliability in the determination of areal biomass productivity. Similar results were obtained in the two PBRs with a variance of less than 5%.