Photobioreactors for microalgal cultures: a Lagrangian model coupling hydrodynamics and kinetics

This work aims at evaluating the performance of representative photobioreactor configurations (flat, tubular, bubble column, and airlift) with different internal or external irradiation, comparing them in terms of photosynthetic rate. A Lagrangian model was adopted to describe the microalgal dynamics based on well-consolidated turbulence models. The effects of the light gradient, mixing and unit-scale were characterized by changing the light-path, irradiance level, turbulence field, and biomass concentration investigated. These conditions ranged in the typical interval adopted for processes reported in the literature.