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Investigation on novel raceway pond with inclined paddle wheels through simulation and microalgae culture experiments

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Abstract

The open raceway ponds are nowadays the most used large-scale reactors for microalgae culture. To avoid the stacking of microalgae, the paddle wheels are the most widely used to circulate and mix the culture medium. In this paper, a numerical simulation using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was used to investigate the hydrodynamic characteristics of open raceway ponds with different types of paddle wheels (the traditional paddle wheels and the novel paddle wheels with specially inclined angle of the blades). The particle image velocimetry (PIV) was used to validate the reliability of the CFD model. The CFD simulation results showed that the novel raceway pond with 15° inclined angle of the blades had the best mixing efficiency under the same power consumption. Lastly, the results of microalgae culture experiments showed that the growth rates of Chlorella pyrenoidosa in the novel raceway pond with 15° inclined angle of the blades were higher than those in the traditional reactor. The results of the culture experiments and CFD simulations were identical with each other. Therefore, a novel paddle wheel with 15° inclined angle of the blades was obtained for better microalgae cultivation.

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Abbreviations

L :

Length of open raceway ponds, m

W :

Width of open raceway ponds, m

H :

Height of open raceway ponds, m

a :

Inclination angle to agitation axis for paddle wheel blades, °

TKE:

Turbulent kinetic energy, J kg−1

U :

Average velocity, m s−1

U z :

Average velocity magnitude along the light direction, m s−1

U x :

Average velocity magnitude along the horizontal direction, m s−1

D z :

The volume percentage of dead zone, %

h 0 :

Depth of deionized water, mm

H :

Depth of water, m

V tip :

Impeller tip velocity, m s−1

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by National Basic Research Program China (973 Program: 2011CB200903).

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Meilong Road 130, Mail box 373, Shanghai, 200237, People’s Republic of China

      Fanxue Zeng, Chen Meng, Fachao Zhu & Jianpei Chen

    2. State Key Laboratory of Bioreactor Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Meilong Road 130, Mail box 301, Shanghai, 200237, People’s Republic of China

      Jianke Huang & Yuanguang Li

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    1. Fanxue Zeng
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    2. Jianke Huang
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    3. Chen Meng
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    Corresponding author

    Correspondence to Jianpei Chen.

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    F. Zeng and J. Huang contributed equally to this study and share first authorship.

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    Zeng, F., Huang, J., Meng, C. et al. Investigation on novel raceway pond with inclined paddle wheels through simulation and microalgae culture experiments. Bioprocess Biosyst Eng 39, 169–180 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-015-1501-9

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    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-015-1501-9

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