what is the best type of photobioreactor for growing spirulina platensis(Tubular or flat plate or ...)
It will grow in just about any container. It will tend to clump some so you will want to be able to mix it some. Also, as it gets dense, you will have to mix it or harvest to get the light to all the cells. So, in many ways it is more how you do it than what you grow it in.
Hi Ariyan,
You may want to try to grow them immobilized. Using e.g. the Twin-Layer system has advantages especially for pigment extraction.
In this system the algae are immobilized on a membrane and the bulk medium flows on the other side of it. The algae are supplied with water and nutrients, but are not suspended. Harvesting can be done by simply scraping off the biomass. It contains only a fraction of the water supplied. You can then directly go on with pigment extraction without any centrifugation or filtration.
Another advantage is the direct exposure to light. Because the algae are not covered by a layer of water all radiation reaches the biomass (the upper cell layers). Pigment composition will differ within the biofilm.
Have a look at the attached publication and let me know if you need additional information.
Article Porous Substrate Bioreactors: A Paradigm Shift in Microalgal...
Hi,
Good question but if the photobioreactor meets and can control the following parameters, it doesn't really matter how it looks:
- Good mixing - Enables gasses, nutrition, and light to reach all parts of the culture not leaving dead zones that are stressed or affects the culture
- Continues harvesting - to keep the culture producing at its optimum density
- Continues feeding - not too little to start and not too much to stress - to give exactly what is needed
- Temperature control - optimal temperature and no fluctuations up and down during the night.
- pH control - keeping it at the most optimal for the growth - some type of control system
- CO2 addition - Spirulina and algae are often a bit starved of and can't get enough CO2 - here continues addition, but not too much to drop the pH below the optimum, and good mixing is the key to give more CO2.
HealthAlgae produces commercially available photobioreactors and one of these is an airlift column system with a volume of 30 L which can give as much as 100-gram fresh Spirulina per day. You can find it and all other products Spirulina products (Spirulina cultures, Spirulina grow medium and Spirulina grow medium components) here: https://www.healthalgae.com/product-category/grow-your-own-spirulina/
Hope this helped some.
Thank you and best regards
Marcus Nyberg
CEO
HealthAlgae
www.healthalgae.com