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Hydrodynamic study of an internal airlift reactor for microalgae culture

  • Biotechnological Products and Process Engineering
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Abstract

Internal airlift reactors are closed systems considered today for microalgae cultivation. Several works have studied their hydrodynamics but based on important solid concentrations, not with biomass concentrations usually found in microalgae cultures. In this study, an internal airlift reactor has been built and tested in order to clarify the hydrodynamics of this system, based on microalgae typical concentrations. A model is proposed taking into account the variation of air bubble velocity according to volumetric air flow rate injected into the system. A relationship between riser and downcomer gas holdups is established, which varied slightly with solids concentrations. The repartition of solids along the reactor resulted to be homogenous for the range of concentrations and volumetric air flow rate studied here. Liquid velocities increase with volumetric air flow rate, and they vary slightly when solids are added to the system. Finally, liquid circulation time found in each section of the reactor is in concordance with those employed in microalgae culture.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank to the group “Nouvelles Stratégies Energétiques” for financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre Energétique et Procédés (CEP), MINES ParisTech, 5 rue Léon Blum, Palaiseau, 91120, France

    Ana Rengel, Assaad Zoughaib, Dominique Dron & Denis Clodic

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  1. Ana Rengel
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  2. Assaad Zoughaib
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  3. Dominique Dron
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  4. Denis Clodic
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Correspondence to Ana Rengel.

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Rengel, A., Zoughaib, A., Dron, D. et al. Hydrodynamic study of an internal airlift reactor for microalgae culture. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 93, 117–129 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-011-3398-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-011-3398-9

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