Effect of biomass concentration on the productivity of Tetraselmis suecica in a pilot-scale tubular photobioreactor using natural sunlight

Outdoor production of microalgae

“…We observed a direct relation between the net specific growth rate and the 84 specific night biomass loss rates. These findings are in line with previous data reported for Tetraselmis suecica [51] cultivated in a similar horizontal tubular photobioreactor operated in Vlissingen, the Netherlands. Clearly, a large part of night biomass loss is coupled to net growth as recently also shown in laboratory experiments for Scenedesmus obliquus by Sforza [86].…”

“…For the HT we did not observe an effect of biomass concentration on the areal productivity, which is not completely in agreement with what has been reported for Tetraselmis suecica [51]. However, these experiments were carried out over a narrower range of PFD conditions and with a different microalga.…”

“…The presence of a dark zone in a cultivation system will reduce the net productivity of the culture, as part of the culture in the dark has negative growth. A long optical path results in lower productivities ( Figure 3.3) [49,51]. Higher photon flux densities will penetrate deeper in the culture and will decrease the size of the dark zone present in the culture.…”

“…Specific night biomass loss rate Specific biomass loss rates during the night were calculated with equation 5 as previously described by [51].…”

“…The effect of biomass concentrations on the productivity of different outdoor photobioreactors was shown in model simulations by different authors [24,29,70] [ 71,72]. However, applying a fixed biomass concentration under outdoor production conditions has only been investigated by a limited number of authors [51,73]. Michels et al, investigated the effect of biomass concentration on the productivity of Tetraselmis suecica; a biomass concentration of 0.7 g L -1 resulted in the highest productivity and biomass yield.…”