title: Dynamic modelling of high biomass density cultivation and biohydrogen production in different scales of flat plate photobioreactors.
abstract: This paper investigates the scaling-up of cyanobacterial biomass cultivation and biohydrogen production from laboratory to industrial scale. Two main aspects are investigated and presented, which to the best of our knowledge have never been addressed, namely the construction of an accurate dynamic model to simulate cyanobacterial photo-heterotrophic growth and biohydrogen production and the prediction of the maximum biomass and hydrogen production in different scales of photobioreactors. To achieve the current goals, experimental data obtained from a laboratory experimental setup are fitted by a dynamic model. Based on the current model, two key original findings are made in this work. First, it is found that selecting low-chlorophyll mutants is an efficient way to increase both biomass concentration and hydrogen production particularly in a large scale photobioreactor. Second, the current work proposes that the width of industrial scale photobioreactors should not exceed 0.20 m for biomass cultivation and 0.05 m for biohydrogen production, as severe light attenuation can be induced in the reactor beyond this threshold.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge, Pembroke Street, Cambridge, CB2 3RA, UK.
authors.forename: Dongda
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London, UK.
authors.forename: Pongsathorn
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Dechatiwongse
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge, Pembroke Street, Cambridge, CB2 3RA, UK.
authors.forename: Ehecatl Antonio
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Del Rio-Chanona
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London, UK.
authors.forename: Geoffrey C
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: Maitland
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London, UK.
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hellgardt
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge, Pembroke Street, Cambridge, CB2 3RA, UK. vsv20@cam.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Vassilios S
authors.initials: VS
authors.lastname: Vassiliadis
mesh_terms: D018533:Biomass; D000458:Cyanobacteria / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000378:metabolism*; D006859:Hydrogen / Q000378:metabolism*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D058433:Photobioreactors / Q000382:microbiology*
chemical_list: D006859:Hydrogen
keywords: biohydrogen production; biomass cultivation; dynamic simulation; light attenuation; photo-heterotrophic growth; photobioreactor