Advances for Opaque PBR Internally Illuminated for Fiber Optic for Microalgae Production

Abstract

The production of microalgae in laboratory systems is restricted almost exclusively since 500 mL to 20 liters tanks of transparent materials such as glass and plastic, under fluorescent lamps on shelves. In this work we developed a laboratory system which produced up to 50 liters of microalgae cultivation with comparable productivity to the traditional system in the laboratory, with the potential to increase productivity scale and lower energy consumption per produced volume. The system is built with opaque plastic tank, and illuminated by Plastic Optics Fiber (POF) and LED. The quality of the biomass grown in the culture system on LED is comparable to the traditional cultivation, with scale-up without increasing the occupied area, only with increased height of the tank. The productivity of the tank on LED to the strain Scenedesmus sp. with a phototrophic cultivation reached productivity of around 20 mg∙L−1∙d−1 and continuing studies may increase further.