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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,
CO2 consumption, O2 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.
1. Introduction
Many strains of photosynthetic microalgae produce lipids that
can be converted into various types of biofuel, such as biodiesel
or jet fuel.1 The potential of using photosynthetic microalgae
to produce biofuel is of particular interest at this time. Americas
deepening dependence on foreign sources of petroleum-based
fuel jeopardizes the national economy and national security.
Increasing CO2 emissions may promote climate change. Rising
demand for energy from developing nations threatens the
availability of sustainable energy for future generations. Commercial biofuel production using algae could mitigate all of these
issues: algae can be cultivated in the United States, algae
consume CO2 during photosynthesis (ideally resulting in a
carbon neutral fuel), and increased biofuel production would
supplement nonrenewable energy sources.2 Microalgae are
already produced commercially for a variety of other applications, which include human nutrition, animal feed, aquaculture,
pigments, and cosmetics.3
Algae can also be cultivated using photoautotrophic (or
photosynthetic), heterotrophic, or mixotrophic growth techniques. Heterotrophic growth is based on the cellular consumption of organic carbon instead of light, and mixtrophic growth
uses the combination of these energy sources. Although some
authors, such as Lee,4 have discussed advantages of heterotrophic and mixotrophic growth, these methods are not
described here. As Chisti noted, heterotrophic growth mechanisms are not as efficient as photosynthetic growth mechanisms
because the carbon source used to feed the algae was ultimately
derived from another plant by photosynthesis. In addition, the
carbon source may compete with food sources for human
consumption.5 Henceforth, the generic term algae will be used
to describe photosynthetic microalgae and the term photobioreactor will be used to describe a system that uses light to
grow algae via only the photosynthetic mode of cultivation.
Algae can be grown with exposure to natural or artificial light.
Artificial lighting techniques have provided insight into how
algae respond to varying light conditions, and these insights
are briefly discussed in the design considerations section of this
paper. However, this paper does not focus on growth systems
that rely on artificial lighting because of energy efficiency
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel.: (713)-7025587. Fax: (512)-471-1720. E-mail: aditya.kunjapur@mail.utexas.edu.
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Figure 1. Rectangular airlift reactor with separate light collection. (Reprinted with kind permission from ref 9. Copyright 2003 John Wiley and Sons.)
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The time taken by the fluid to travel the length of the degasser
must at least equal the time required by the oxygen bubbles to
rise out.36 If practical, the capture and sale of this oxygen
stripped from the reactors may be an opportunity to reduce the
cost of biofuel production.
2.6. Nutrient Supply. In order to grow, algae require more
than the reactants in the photosynthesis reaction. Two major
nutrients are nitrogen and phosphorus, which both play a role
in controlling growth rates and lipid production. Other essential
nutrients are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, sulfur, calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, and chlorine. Nutrients needed in
minute quantities include iron, boron, manganese, copper, molybdenum, vanadium, cobalt, nickel, silicon, and selenium.21
An analysis of a common medium known as N-8 revealed
the deficiency of iron, magnesium, sulfur, and nitrogen at high
cell concentrations. Additional experiments showed that the
separate addition of each of the four elements did not improve
culture performance, but that balanced supplementation resulted
in improved performance. The experimenters therefore asserted
that balancing the nutrients based on the elemental composition
of the biomass should be the basis for effective medium
design.37 However, Chisti noted that some nutrients need to be
present in excess. For example, phosphorus must be supplied
in excess because the phosphates react with metal ions.5
Applying stress in the form of limited nutrients (especially
N or P) can increase lipid percentages within the biomass.
However, this stress application also curtails the growth rate
and thus may lower overall lipid production. The trade-off
between productivity and lipid content stems from the high
metabolic cost of lipid biosynthesis. Rodolfi et al. described
three different situations of nutrient supply: nutrient-sufficient,
nutrient-limited, and nutrient-deficient. The first case should be
evident, but the difference between the latter two cases may be
subtle. Nutrient limitation occurs when cells are grown in an
environment of a constant, but insufficient, supply of a limiting
nutrient, to which the cells generally adapt. Nutrient deficiency
is characterized by the cultures reliance on endogenous reserves
because there are no nutrients in the environment. Rodolfi et
al. compared the growth of a few robust strains under all three
conditions, with the nutrient-deficient scenario applied to
microalgae previously grown in a nutrient-sufficient environment. The authors found that the genus Nannochloropsis was
an exception to the rule and had both enhanced lipid content
and lipid productivity in an N-deficient environment.38
2.7. Temperature. Temperatures experienced by algae grown
outdoors can vary as much as the extreme outdoor temperatures
characteristic to the geographic region of cultivation. Although
algae may be able to grow at a variety of temperatures, optimal
growth is limited to a narrow range specific to each strain. For
example, Abu-Rezq et al. found that the optimum temperature
range for Nannochloropsis, Tetraselmis, and Isochrysis was
19-21, 19-21, and 24-26 C, respectively.31
Seasonal and even daily fluctuations in temperature can
interfere with algae production. Temperatures can reach as high
as 30 C higher than ambient temperature in a closed photobioreactor without temperature control equipment.21 Evaporate
cooling or shading techniques are employed frequently to inhibit
temperatures of that magnitude. In addition, a lower temperature
appears to reduce the loss of biomass due to respiration during
the night.5
2.8. pH. Each strain of algae also has a narrow optimal range
of pH. The pH of the medium is linked to the concentration of
CO2. Suh and Lee21 mentioned that pH increases steadily in
the medium as CO2 is consumed during flow downstream in a
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typical advantages
typical disadvantages
FP
tubular
high volumetric
biomass density
oxygen accumulation
photoinhibition
most land use
vertical
reactors having lower accumulation of dissolved oxygen concentrations than horizontal reactors.24 FP reactors also consume
less power than tubular reactors to achieve similar or greater
mass transfer capacity.49 Power consumption is another important criterion for comparison among reactor types.
Sanchez Miron et al.51 compared tubular and column reactors
and arrived at many significant conclusions. Tubular reactors
have very limited possibility for commercial scale applications,
whereas column reactors do have potential. Bubble column
reactors performed better than tubular reactors because they are
supposedly more suited for scale-up, require less energy for
cooling because of the low surface to volume ratio, and overall
outperform tubular reactors throughout the year. Under high
light intensity, vertical reactors experience less photoinhibition,
and under low light intensity, a vertical orientation captures more
reflected light.51 A vertical orientation also requires less land
area.17 Molina et al. asserted that, for tubular reactors, a twolayered loop with the lower set of tubes displaced horizontally
in between the upper set of tubes maximizes efficiency of land
use.36
Vertical reactors appear to best satisfy the design considerations outlined earlier in this paper, at least at laboratory scale.
There are two main types of vertical reactors: air-lift reactors
and bubble column reactors. Vertical air-lift reactors improve
gas exchange, liquid flow, and exposure of cells to light.17 Airlift reactors circulate the culture without moving parts or
mechanical pumping, which reduces the potential for contamination and for cell damage due to shear. The tubular photobioreactor of Molina et al., depicted earlier in Figure 4, was
air-lift driven. The air-lift both circulated the fluid through the
loop and stripped oxygen from the culture.36
Experiments involving different types of column reactors have
provided conflicting results. Merchuk et al.52 compared the
performance of an airlift reactor equipped with helical flow
promoters (ALR + HFP) to the performance of a bubble column
reactor, both at bench-scale. Figure 10 illustrates the benchscale reactors.
The authors found that the ALR + HFP performed the best
with regard to biomass production because improved fluid
dynamics led to less air and CO2 consumption, which significantly reduced operating costs.52 In a review by Janssen et al.,9
the authors analyzed pneumatically agitated vertical column
reactors, tubular reactors, and flat panel reactors. The authors
concluded that bubble column and air-lift reactors appear to
have similar light regimes and productivity, but that bubble
support costs
scalability
column reactors perform better at higher superficial gas velocities (above 0.05 m/s) and at column heights greater than the
2.32 m. used for comparison. The authors also claimed that
tubular reactors display equal or lesser photosynthetic efficiency
than bubble column or air-lift reactors, but that the biomass
density is twice as high.9 Finally, in a review by Eriksen et al.,
the authors noted that airlift and bubble column reactors may
be superior to stirred tank reactors because of the absence of
moving mechanical components, which require greater maintenance.53 The advantages and disadvantages of different types
of reactors are compared in Table 1. Table 1 reveals that each
of the most common reactor types exhibit tradeoffs between
key design parameters. Vertical reactors generally feature the
least land use among the three closed reactor types and high
photosynthetic efficiency, at least on the small scales most often
described in the literature. Excluding cost, these two measures
of performance may be the most important when selecting a
reactor configuration. However, vertical reactors are most
susceptible to scalability challenges, thus making it difficult to
determine the preferred reactor type among these choices for
commercial scale applications.
4.2. Closed Reactor Scalability. According to Sierra et al.,
flat panel and tubular photobioreactors have been scaled-up to
sizes exceeding 1000 L, but vertical reactors are limited to an
optimum size of 125 L.49 There are limited examples of largescale applications of air-lift reactors. Vunjak-Novakovic et al.
described the design and operation of a pilot-scale triangular
air-lift unit fed by flue gas. The pilot-scale unit was composed
of 30 ALRs, each containing a volume of 30 L. The system
was installed and tested under actual conditions on the roof of
the Cogeneration Power Plant at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.54 Figure 11 contains images of the triangular airlift reactor configuration:
Tubular reactors can be scaled-up by either increasing the
length or diameter of the tubes. Either route presents technical
challenges. An increase in tube length results in unacceptable
concentrations of dissolved oxygen along the tubes. In contrast,
increasing the tube diameter may be more promising as long
as the entire culture can be illuminated sufficiently. However,
one of the major problems of increasing the diameter is light
stratification.23,36 Molina et al. noted that scale-up of the airlift driven tubular reactor discussed earlier would be challenging.36 However, Chisti was optimistic about the scale-up of
tubular reactors and claimed that only tubular photobioreactors
and raceway ponds are suitable for large-scale production.5
Janssen et al. concluded that scale-up of closed systems is
only possible by increasing the number of small units in a
production scheme. This method becomes extremely expensive,
since each unit requires a variety of devices that control the
wide range of growth factors discussed earlier in this paper. In
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Figure 11. Inclined-tube ALR configuration: (A) schematic presentation of one airlift triangle. Solid arrows indicate the direction of the gas flow, and
open arrows indicate the direction of the liquid flow (B) An array of 30 ALRs, each with a volume of 30 L, with an algal culture grown on a flue gas. Inset:
installation of the array of ALRs on the roof of the MIT Cogeneration Power Plant.54 (Reprinted with kind permission from ref 54. Copyright 2005
American Chemical Society.)
Between 2002 and 2004, $100/m2 was an estimate of photobioreactor capital costs used in the literature, with the expectation of significant cost reductions as technology improved.56
In a review by Schenk et al., the authors claimed that reactor
costs should not exceed $15/m2 based on energy costs and
productivities from 2008. The estimated setup costs for closed
reactors were generally ten times higher than for open ponds.8
In a review by Chisti,5 direct comparisons were made between
the production costs of hypothetical facilities producing 100 000
kg of biomass annually using either photobioreactors or raceway
ponds. Chisti found that the estimated production costs were
$2.95 and $3.80/kg of biomass for closed reactors and raceway
ponds, respectively. Under a scaled-up scenario of 10 000 tons
of biomass produced per year, the estimated production costs
were $0.47 and $0.60/kg of biomass for closed versus open
reactors.5 Note that this analysis did not consider the capital
costs involved with creating either facility, but it did show that
production costs are expected to be lower in closed systems.
Because of economic considerations, many authors have concluded that closed reactors can only be used for the production
of high-value products.12,35
The ASP report contained an important conclusion regarding
the evaluation of the potential economics of algae production,
whether it involved open or closed systems. The report asserts
that high value byproducts or coproducts, such as pigments,
vitamins, or specialty chemicals created from the remaining
biomass, should be excluded from the cost analysis. These
products would be produced in such large amounts that they
would saturate potential markets. An exception would be large
byproduct markets such as for animal feeds, and indeed, the
authors believed that a likely route for commercial scale
production will utilize specialty foods and animal feeds coproduction.1 However, Chisti argued that most of the biomass
remaining after oil extraction should be made into biogas using
anaerobic digestion. The resulting biogas would then be used
to meet the energy needs of growing and processing algae in
the same facility. Economic benefits from using this approach
include the sale of surplus energy, nutrient-rich fertilizer, and
irrigation water all produced while making biogas.41
5. Combinations of Open and Closed Systems
Some authors believe that combining open and closed reactors
is the most effective configuration for growing algae.8 Huntley
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Figure 13. A schematic drawing of 2 units, 200 L each, connected together. (a) point of connection of two reactor units, (b) inner supports, (c) braces for
keeping together the front and back plates, (d) distance between the bottom of the reactor and the inner supports, (e) passage made between the two units
to create a common volume between units.55 (Reprinted with kind permission from ref 55. Copyright 2001 Elsevier.)
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