Numerical study of microalgae cultivation process in a batch liquid foam-bed photobioreactor using CFD approach

Microalgae have different uses as feedstock of beneficial chemicals such as polysaccharides, carotenoids, and polyunsaturated fatty acids. Furthermore, they have been applied in the renewable energy, food, agriculture and feed industries, and in wastewater treatment. The growth and cultivation of microalgae are highly regarded by researchers worldwide. So, a variety of systems and designs have been used to cultivate microalgae. A research team recently proposed a new experimental design of photobioreactors based on a liquid foam flow at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. In this study, a numerical study of hydrodynamics and mass transfer of this novel system was conducted using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). This method is based on the simultaneous solution of transfer equations including hydrodynamic equations, mass transfer, cell growth, and radiation transport equation. The simulation was performed in an unsteady and three-dimensional state in COMSOL 5.5 software. The flow regime was considered laminar and mixture model and transport dilution species physics were used to model the behavior of two-phase fluid. Manual geometry grid generation was performed after defining the velocity and concentration boundaries. The number of optimal meshes was determined to be approximately 1.2 × 105 using the mesh independence test. The simulation results were validated according to the concentration-time curve. The cell density, 22 g l−1, is minimal in the center. The maximum biomass is 30.9 g l−1 at the bed wall after 80 h at 1446 μmol photon. m−2. s−1 light flux for the minimal cell density.