The economic balance of microalgae cultivation at industrial scale to produce biofuels is currently advantageous only if some integrated solutions are adopted and/or simple design reactors as open ponds or tubular are used. Scale-up from lab to industrial production usually requires continuously or semi-continuously operated plants. Since in industrial production often wastewater and flue gas rich of CO2 are used as nutrients, feeding intervals must be controlled, by taking into account also light – dark cycles. Moreover, also extraction must be operated at time intervals and/or at different residence times if sets of parallel-series reactors are used. Finally, being algal growth discontinuous, semi-continuous reactors seem to be the best operating choice. Since the profit margin is low, production processes must be optimized, and to do this, continuous but low cost measures must be performed. An on-line monitoring and low-cost early-warning system was developed and is presented in this work. The system is tailored for microalgae cultures in open ponds and in tubular /airlift semi-continuous reactors. Measures of pH, T, DOx, Conductivity are carried out due to their low cost, while spectra or sample measurements, that cannot be adopted as on-line measures of plant performance, are used for calibration. Architecture and main features of the system, called MEMO, are described. It is an open-source web-based smart-SCADA system ad-hoc developed to acquire, manage, aggregate, historicize and show in real-time process data from microalgae cultivation. By MEMO it is possible to monitor the main operative conditions of the units in their different sections and to manage alarms. MEMO is mainly based on open-source hardware and software.

Development of a low-cost monitoring system and operating database for microalgae cultivation in photobioreactors

Ombretta Paladino;Francesca Fissore;Arianna Moranda
2018-01-01

Abstract

The economic balance of microalgae cultivation at industrial scale to produce biofuels is currently advantageous only if some integrated solutions are adopted and/or simple design reactors as open ponds or tubular are used. Scale-up from lab to industrial production usually requires continuously or semi-continuously operated plants. Since in industrial production often wastewater and flue gas rich of CO2 are used as nutrients, feeding intervals must be controlled, by taking into account also light – dark cycles. Moreover, also extraction must be operated at time intervals and/or at different residence times if sets of parallel-series reactors are used. Finally, being algal growth discontinuous, semi-continuous reactors seem to be the best operating choice. Since the profit margin is low, production processes must be optimized, and to do this, continuous but low cost measures must be performed. An on-line monitoring and low-cost early-warning system was developed and is presented in this work. The system is tailored for microalgae cultures in open ponds and in tubular /airlift semi-continuous reactors. Measures of pH, T, DOx, Conductivity are carried out due to their low cost, while spectra or sample measurements, that cannot be adopted as on-line measures of plant performance, are used for calibration. Architecture and main features of the system, called MEMO, are described. It is an open-source web-based smart-SCADA system ad-hoc developed to acquire, manage, aggregate, historicize and show in real-time process data from microalgae cultivation. By MEMO it is possible to monitor the main operative conditions of the units in their different sections and to manage alarms. MEMO is mainly based on open-source hardware and software.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11567/980270
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