Advanced integration of fluid dynamics and photosynthetic reaction kinetics for microalgae culture systems

Background: Photosynthetic microalgae have been in the spotlight of biotechnological production (biofuels, lipids, etc), however, current barriers in mass cultivation of microalgae are limiting its successful industrialization. Therefore, a mathematical model integrating both the biological and hydrodynamical parts of the cultivation process may improve our understanding of relevant phenomena, leading to further optimization of the microalgae cultivation. Results: We introduce a unified multidisciplinary simulation tool for microalgae culture systems, particularly the photobioreactors. Our approach describes changes of cell growth determined by dynamics of heterogeneous environmental conditions such as irradiation and mixing of the culture. Presented framework consists of (i) a simplified model of microalgae growth in a culture system (the advection-diffusion-reaction system within a phenomenological model of photosynthesis and photoinhibition), (ii) the fluid dynamics (Navier-Stokes equations), and (iii) the irradiance field description (Beer-Lambert law). To validate the method, a simple case study leading to hydrodynamically induced fluctuating light conditions was chosen. The integration of computational fluid dynamics (ANSYS Fluent) revealed the inner property of the system, the flashing light enhancement phenomenon, known from experiments. Conclusion: Our physically accurate model of microalgae culture naturally exhibits features of real system, can be applied to any geometry of microalgae mass cultivation and thus is suitable for biotechnological applications.