Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2021
26th International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
MATHEMATICAL MODELING AND SIMULATION OF MICROALGAE GROWTH IN SERIAL AIRLIFT PHOTOBIOREACTOR
Submission Author:
Murilo Gasparin Rampi , PR
Co-Authors:
Murilo Gasparin Rampi, Wellington Balmant, Thiago Nishimura, Lauber Martins, JOSÉ VIRIATO COELHO VARGAS, vinicius bohrer coser
Presenter: Murilo Gasparin Rampi
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2021.COB2021-1951
Abstract
Environmental impacts caused by greenhouse gas emissions are a global concern, for this reason, the search for ways to reduce these emissions has become a critical point in our society. While renewable energy sources represent 14% of the global energy matrix, in Brazil, this percentage is 46.1%, with emphasis on biofuels, which represent 6.9%. The production of biodiesel through microalgae appears as an alternative to conventional production that depends on soy or other agricultural products. Microalgae can be grown in compact photobioreactors that have a high production rate in a small area. Microalgae can also be used in the treatment of combustion gases, since those gases accelerate microalgae growth. Even so, large scale production processes face problems such as low productivity in the case of ponds and high energy cost in the case of compact tubular photobioreactors. In order for microalgae production to become attractive, it is necessary to develop an economically competitive process and for this purpose, the objective of this research is to develop a high efficiency airlift reactor with a volume large enough to treat emission gases on a large scale and still produce quality biofuels. A mathematical model of the airlift reactor will be presented and validated using experimental data from other studies. The model will take into account the kinetics of microalgae growth according to the following parameters: oxygen concentration, carbon dioxide concentration, nitrate concentration, phosphate concentration, temperature and luminosity. Mass balance will be applied at each component participating in the reaction following the kinetic growth and the mass transfer laws between the feeding gas and the microalgae culture. The parametric analyzes conducted indicate a strong dependence of the CO2 mass transfer constant on the growth rate of the microalgae, the more efficient the addition of dissolved CO2 to the culture, the faster it will grow. Another parametric analysis conducted indicates that the addition of greater amount of nitrate in the culture medium used means greater amount of final biomass produced. Although it was not possible to collect experimental data from the proposed system, the present study has already shown that the suggested mathematical model works. Once these data can be collected, it will be possible to apply modeling and simulation tools to produce microalgae in the proposed photobioreactor with high efficiency, minimizing operating costs.
Keywords
microalgae, biodiesel, mathematical model, photobioreactor
