The Designs of Photobioreactors for Microalgae Production

Commercial microalgae production is a branch of industry, which has a strong base. Recently, in the production of commercial microalgae, the different designs of closed photobioreactors providing new species and the commercial production of these have shown a great improvement. These designs seem to be prevalent in commerce in the near future. Tubular photobioreactors designed according to the closed systems were made in different shapes, various size and length of transparent pipes or tubes. In these type bioreactors, the appropriate diameter of the tube is from 2 to 4 cm. Although the success of open systems in the Spirulina and Dunaliella microalgae mass cultures which are cultured in a distinct growth environment, production of microalgae species like Haemetococcus and Phaeodactylum which used in commerce and have no distinct environment conditions is more successful in the closed systems. However, the high production costs of these systems have prevented the commercial application until recent years. The basic principle of the designs for the smooth flat reactor and tubular photobioreactor is to get use of light more productive by cultured cells. Thus it is been possible to arrive greater biomass density by providing appropriate stirring which remove accumulation of harmful gases from culture systems and by getting use of light more productive by cultured cells. As a conclusion, these systems are suitable to work for the continuous production. In the maximum continuous density depending on the production of algae and the active usage of growing environment conditions, it provides the chance to distribute the production in advance. Therefore, the total cost decreases and a need for smaller areas. The aim is to decrease the cost by reducing the construction costs of these systems.