A study on design improvement for tank photobioreactor

Abstract

This study aims to design an improved photobioreactor from the current conventional approached in cultivating microalgae in lab scale using conical flask and glass tanks. In order to design a photobioreactor, thus the study required to investigate parameters that important affecting the cultivation process of the microalgae. The study also applied several techniques and knowledge of product design during the designing process for the photobioreactor. It is also important to consider the present product to be used for the industrial scale in future, therefore the techniques for product design must be applied. The techniques used are such as data collection of customer needs, concept generation, concept screening, concept selection and others knowledge also have been used. Finally, the developed photobioreactor was validated by cultivating 4 litre of Chlorella sp. within 10 days in MLA medium at pH 10. The highest cell concentration achieved at 0.33 g/l after 4 days of cultivation.