Masaru Nanba

Isolation and characterization of a green alga Neochloris sp. for CO2 fixation

A green alga Neochloris sp. TS4F isolated from a pond at Ueno Park, Tokyo, is tolerant of the concentration of 10% CO 2 bubbling at 35°C. This microalga can fix CO 2 at the rate of 0.027 g L 1 h 1 by photosynthesis at 30°C and produces lipid as 24% by dry weight when grown under nitrogen starvation.

CO2 removal by a bioreactor with photosynthetic algae using solar-collecting and light-diffusing optical devices

A photo-bioreactor was designed and constructed, in which solar light was supplied by light-diffusing optical rods connected to solar-light collector through optical fiber cables. The performance of biological CO 2 -fixation with photosynthetic microalgae, Chlorella sp. UK001, under the natural rays of sunlight was estimated. A rate of CO 2 -fixation was obtained of 24 g m 2 d 1 on a sunny day, in which energy density of direct-sunlight was 780 W m 2 . Photosynthetic efficiency of converting light energy to biomass was estimated as 1.6% for total incident energy on the surface of the solar-light collector, and 12% for photosynthetic ally available visible-region.