Implementation and analysis of temperature control strategies for outdoor photobiological hydrogen production

For outdoor photobiological hydrogen production, the effective control of temperature in photobioreactors is a challenge. In this work, an internal cooling system for outdoor tubular photobioreactors was designed, built, and tested. The temperatures in the reactors with bacteria were consistently higher than those without bacteria, and were also strongly influenced by solar irradiation and ambient air temperature. The cooling protocol applied successfully kept the reactor temperatures below the threshold limit (38 °C) required for the bioprocess and provided a uniform distribution of temperature along the reactor tube length. The biomass growth and hydrogen production were similar in the reactors cooled co-currently and counter-currently. The biomass growth rate was 0.1 l/h, the maximum hydrogen production rate was 1.28 mol/m3/h, and the overall hydrogen yield obtained was 20 %. The change in the biomass was fitted using the logistic model while cumulative hydrogen production was fitted using the modified Gompertz equation.