Photobioreactor Design for Commercial Biofuel Production from Microalgae
Abstract
This review paper describes systems used to cultivate microalgae for biofuel production. It addresses general design considerations pertaining to reactors that use natural light and photosynthetic growth mechanisms, with an emphasis on large-scale reactors. Important design aspects include lighting, mixing, water consumption, CO 2 consumption, O 2 removal, nutrient supply, temperature, and pH. Though open pond reactors are the most affordable option, they provide insufficient control of nearly all growth conditions. In contrast, a variety of closed reactors offer substantial control, but few feature the likelihood for levels of productivity that offset their high cost. One of the greatest challenges of closed photobioreactor design is how to increase reactor size in order to benefit from economy of scale and produce meaningful quantities of biofuel. This paper also highlights the concept of combining open and closed systems and concludes with a discussion regarding a possible optimal reactor configuration.
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Expensive production costs hinder the ability to exploit economies of scale by increasing the reactor size to produce greater amounts of biodiesel.
“Such expensive production costs hinder the ability to exploit economies of scale by increasing the reactor size to produce greater amounts of biodiesel (Kunjapur and Eldridge, 2010).”
From Strategies to Produce Cost-Effective Third-Generation Biofuel From Microalgae (2021) · cites this paper as Kunjapur and Eldridge, 2010
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- Authors
- Kunjapur, A. M., & Eldridge, R. B.
- Affiliations
- The University of Texas at Austin (US)
- Corresponding author
- Kunjapur, Aditya M.
- Venue
- Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research
- Publisher
- American Chemical Society (ACS)
- Published
- 2010-03-23
- Volume
- 49
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 3516-3526
- ISSN
- 0888-5885 (ISSN-L)
- 1520-5045
- OpenAlex
- W2013720377
- Cited by
- 239
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 19 · 2015: 24 · 2014: 18 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 12
- FWCI
- 6.15
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Energy › Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment › Algal biology and biofuel production
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Biomedical Engineering › Fluid Dynamics and Mixing
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Microbial Metabolic Engineering and Bioproduction
- Keywords
- photobioreactor design, microalgae cultivation, biofuel production, closed photobioreactors, daylighting, mixing, CO2 consumption, oxygen removal, nutrient supply, economies of scale, reactor configuration
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