The Effect of Irradiance Related Temperature on Microalgae Growth in a Tubular Photo Bioreactor for Cleaner Energy

Inmicroalgae based biofuel technology, the light is one of the important factorsfor the proper growth of microalgae cells as microalgae is a photosyntheticmicroorganism. For a large scale outdoor culture the irradiance of sunlight andassociated temperature is also need to consider. In this study aims to presentcomputational model of microalgae growth taking effect of solar irradiance andcorresponding temperature in a tubular photo bioreactor for an outdoor culturesystem. We consider the transient behavior of temperature inside the for a microalgae culture. The optimum range of temperature foroutdoor cultivation of microalgae is about 22℃ - 27℃ and out of this range the microalgae cellgrowth inhibits. Many correlations have already been established to investigatethe algal productivity based on the dynamic conditions of temperature in caseof full scale outdoor cultivation. However, none of them are validated yetnumerically considering the model as a function of weather conditions,operational behavior and design criteria. A tubular photobioreactor (PBR) withlength 20.5 m and radius 0.05 m has taken account as a simulation model. The PBR is horizontally placedas temperature variations can be observed with greater accuracy. As the solarirradiance varies at any geographic latitude for a year and so thustemperature, equations and parameters are established relating the irradiancewith the temperature to simulate the effect. We observed some significanteffects of temperature on the growth of microalgae. Moreover, for the maximumgrowth of the cells we should control the surrounding temperature.