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Abstract

Growing interest of microalgae biomass, as a valuable resource of organic molecules for pharmaceutical, food and renewable energy industries has led research to focus on the development of economically feasible large scale outdoor facilities. The design of the photobioreactors should maximize the amount of irradiation received. However, strong solar radiation has a negative impact on microalgae growth rates. The engineering solutions are costly to control the increase in the broth temperature beyond the optimal conditions, the direct and reflected irradiation in large scale facilities. A viable alternative is the development of new construct materials to reduce the incident solar radiation and the broth temperature in the photobioreactor. In this work, Expandable Polystyrene pellets (EPS) were tested to reduce the thermal conductivity and transparence of a polymer matrix which was used as a construction material for photobioreactors to control irradiance and broth temperature in microalgae cultivation, then, the features of the EPS composite samples were tested in a model to predict the broth temperature and the growth rate as a function of temperature and irradiance. The addition of 6.0 vol.% of EPS pellets of a 1.0 mm diameter or 12.5 vol.% of EPS pellets of a 2.0 mm diameter led to a reduction in the broth temperature of up to 6 �°C and an increase in the growth rate of up to 47%. However, a decrease in the thermal conductivity of the photobioreactor wall did not result in a significant reduction in the broth temperature.

Biography

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