(204d) Concentric-Tube Internal Loop Airlift Reactors for Microalgae Cultivation: A Review

Microalgae are widely used in applications such as aquaculture, environment engineering, food, and pharmaceuticals [1]. Recently, microalgae technologies attract a surging attention due to the great capabilities of producing bio-fuels and sequestrating carbon dioxide, thus meeting the increasing demand of sustainable aviation and marine fuels production and carbon reduction [2]. An enclosed, controlled, nourished, and illuminated culture environment for the production of biomass can be provided by a photobioreactor, particularly the concentric-tube internal loop airlift reactor. This type of reactor offers the advantages of simple construction, easy operation, low power consumption, defined fluid flow patterns, and creation of light/dark cycles.

The concentric-tube internal loop airlift reactors are common reactor configurations adopted for microalgae cultivation, as well as various chemical and biochemical processes. Despite the fact that this type of reactor has been proposed for a few decades and many research studies were conducted, there is no a research study which provides a thorough introduction of the basic concepts, configurations, and numerical and experimental methodologies for investigating the reactor performance. Hence, the present work provides a comprehensive review of the reactor basic concepts, classifications, theoretical background, performance metrics, numerical and experimental methodologies, and parametric analyses on the effects of reactor design parameters, as well as recent advancement techniques.

References:

[1] P. Spolaore, C. Joannis-Cassan, E. Duran, A. Isambert, Commercial applications of microalgae, Journal of Bioscience and Bioengineering 101 (2) (2006) 87–96.

[2] G. Satpati, R. Pal, Microalgae-biomass to biodiesel: a review, Journal of Algal Biomass Utilization 9 (4) (2018) 11–37.