Effective Viscosity of Chlorella Sp. USTB-01 Suspension for Biofuel Production

Abstract

Rheological properties of microalgae suspensions affect the mixing and mass transport in photobioreactor systems and the design of downstream biomass processing technologies，and directly impact the energy demand and system performance of algae biofuel production. The purpose of this paper is to obtain the rheological properties as a function of volume fraction. The volume fractions of microalgae suspensions φ were derived according to the size distribution of the microalgae cells and cell number concentrations per cubic meter liquid. We found that at low concentrations, microalgae suspensions display a Newtonian fluid behavior. At high concentrations, microalgae suspensions behave as a shear thinning non-Newtonian fluid. The results are of potential scientific relevance and also useful in relation to the design of algae bioprocessing for the large scale production of economic biofuels.