Cultivation of Klebsormidium sp. in a thin-layer cross-flow photobioreactor

Nevertheless, the existing microalgae cultivation reactors fewquently encunter challenges such as high costs, low biomass yield, and slow growth rates. To enhance the cultivation efficiency of microalgae and overcome the constraints on their application potential due to low productivity, this study designed a thin-layer cross-flow photobioreactor (TCPBR) as well as a multi-TCPBR system with promising applications.

The performance of the TCPBR was tested under various conditions, including inoculation concentration, illumination intensity, adhesion media, flow rate, and liquid level difference. Results indicated that when cultivating Klebsormidium sp. using the TCPBR at an inoculation concentration of 10 g/m2 and light intensity of 85 µmol/(m ·s), the growth rate reached (15.00±0.34) g/(m2 ·d2). Experimental with sieves of mesh sizes ranging from 300 to 1500 revealed that an 800-mesh sieve resulted in a retention rate for Klebsormidium sp. of up to (98.11±0.04)%.