Novel multifunctional airlift tube photobioreactor

Abstract

The invention provides a reactor body and a multifunctional airlift tube photobioreactor. The reactor body, namely a reaction device, comprises two or more transparent perpendicular pipelines arranged side by side, and connecting tubes or connecting grooves communicated with the tops and the bottoms of the perpendicular pipelines respectively. The photobioreactor comprises the reactor body, a ventilation system and an optional parameter detection and control system. The invention further provides a microalgae culture method which comprises the step that the reactor body or the photobioreactor is used for carrying out photoautotrophic culture, photoinduction culture and mixotrophic nutrition culture of the microalgae. The multifunctional airlift tube photobioreactor has the advantages of being large in illumination specific surface area, high in gas-liquid mass transfer coefficient, small in fluid shear force and the like; engineering enlargement, cleaning and maintenance are easy, operation is convenient, high-density, high-efficiency and large-scale photoautotrophic culture, photoinduction culture and mixotrophic nutrition culture of the microalgae can be achieved, high-efficiency culture of photosynthetic bacteria can also be achieved, and meanwhile the multifunctional airlift tube photobioreactor can be used for microalgae carbon sequestration and wastewater treatment.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention belongs to the field of microalgae biotechnology, and relates to a reactor main body and a multifunctional air-lift type tube photobioreactor. Background technique [0002] Microalgae are rich in protein, polysaccharides, pigments, polyunsaturated fatty acids and multivitamins. At the same time, microalgae have the ability to absorb N / P and accumulate oil. Therefore, microalgae has important application value in many fields such as food, medicine, feed, bait, environmental protection and energy. [0003] Photobioreactor is the core device of microalgae photoautotrophic culture and light induction (that is, induction of algae cells to synthesize and accumulate useful substances, such as pigments, proteins, etc.) and mixed nutrition culture by light. At present, photobioreactors are mainly divided into open type and closed type. Open photobioreactors mainly refer to raceway ponds and round ponds, which are currently the most widely used c...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

However, the photobioreactors proposed by the above-mentioned researchers have not completely solved the main problems of column and tube photobioreactors.

At present, the main problem of the column photobioreactor is the difficulty of scaling up, and it is not easy to scale up in the height direction or the radial direction.

Enlarging in the height direction will increase the strength requirements of the material, and cause serious light blocking between column reactors and difficult operation; enlarging in the radial direction will significantly increase the proportion of dark areas in the reactor, resulting in a decrease in the growth efficiency of algae cells

Therefore, it is only possible to increase the number of single column reactors to realize a large-scale cultivation system, but this results in high investment costs, and there are many inconveniences in operations such as inoculation, harvesting, and condition control.

As for tubular photobioreactors, at present, it is mainly enlarged from the perspective of increasing the length of the pipeline, which easily causes difficulties in the analysis of dissolved oxygen, inhibits the growth of algae cells and reduces photosynthetic efficiency; in addition, usually a certain scale of tubular photobioreactors Bioreactors use pumps to transport algae liquid, and pumps will more or less cause shear damage to algal cells, including diaphragm pumps or peristaltic pumps with low shear force

Therefore, the use of pumps to mix and transport algae liquid will cause damage to algae cells and reduce the culture density and yield of algae cells.

Although small-scale tubular photobioreactors can use the airlift system to transport the algae liquid and reduce the damage to algae cells, it is difficult for the airlift system to be applied to a certain scale of tubular photobioreactors (the pipeline is relatively large). long, the fluid resistance is large, and the airlift effect is difficult to keep the algae liquid in the pipeline at a certain flow rate)

At the same time, when the tube-type photobioreactor is long, it is difficult to effectively clean the inner wall of the tube, which is likely to cause unclean cleaning, which not only blocks light but also increases the probability of contamination by harmful organisms

In addition, the tubular photobioreactor has a small diameter and a large specific surface area of ​​light, which is easy to accumulate heat and make temperature control difficult.

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