Continuous cultivation of Arthrospira (Spirulina) platensis in tubular photobioreactor using urea as nitrogen source and CO2 from cylinder or produced by alcoholic fermentation

Author(s)

Marcelo Chuei Matsudo

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Conjunto das Químicas (IQ e FCF) (CQ/DBDCQ)
• Defense date: 2010-04-08

Examining board members

João Carlos Monteiro de Carvalho; José Abrahão Neto; Eliane Dalva Godoy Danesi; Fernando Fratelli; Telma Mary Kaneko

• Advisor: João Carlos Monteiro de Carvalho

Abstract

Appropriately designed tubular photobioreactors seem to be suitable for photosynthetic biomass production. It can reduce the cultivation area and provide lower loss of CO2 and ammoniacal nitrogen by volatilization. In a first step of this study, Arthrospira platensis was cultivated by continuous process, testing different values of dilution rate (D = 0.2 to 1.0 d-1) and light intensities (I = 60 and 120 µmol photons.m-2.s-1). The results of these runs showed that the maximum steady-state cell concentration (XS = 2446 ± 74 mg.L-1.d-1) was achieved at 120 µmol photons.m-2.s-1 and D of 0.2 d-1, but the same light intensity associated to higher dilution rate (0.6 d-1) provided the highest cell productivity (PX = 938 ± 30 mg.L-1.d-1), a value appreciably higher than that reported in other studies. Besides, steady-state conditions were achieved in most of the runs indicating that A. platensis continuous cultivation in the tubular photobioreactor, using urea as nitrogen source, can be performed effectively, thus appearing an interesting alternative for the large scale fixation of carbon dioxide to mitigate the green house effect. Taking into account the concern about the substitution of fossil fuel with biofuels, its evident that the ethanol production is going to increase even more in the next years, and this study propose the use of the CO2 released by the alcoholic fermentation for the production of photosynthetic microorganism such as A. platensis. For this purpose, in a second step, cultivations of A. platensis were carried out with 120 µmol photons.m-2.s-1 by continuous process, using urea and CO2 from Alcoholic fermentation for pH maintenance and carbon source replacement. The use of this CO2, without any treatment, associated with a D of 0.6 d-1 and feed urea concentration of 3.2 mM provide us a PX of 839 ± 25 mg.L-1.d-1, which is slightly lower than 938 ±30 mg.L-1.d-1, obtained with pure CO2 from cylinder. Our results showed that the use of CO2 from alcoholic fermentation, associated with urea, is suitable for the continuous cultivation cyanobacterial biomass, providing not only the production cost reduction but also other benefits related to environmental and social issues. (AU)