A CFD coupled photo-bioreactive transport modelling of tubular photobioreactor mixed by peristaltic pump. (15th April 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Anye Cho, Bovinille; Grobler, Elze; William McClelland Pott, Robert; Antonio del Río Chanona‬, Ehecatl; Zhang, Dongda
• Is Part Of: Chemical engineering science. Volume 270(2023)
• Publication Date: 2023-04-15
• Subjects: CFD modelling -- Tubular photobioreactor -- Biokinetic modelling -- Biohydrogen production -- Uncertainty analysis; Chemical engineering -- Periodicals; Génie chimique -- Périodiques; Chemical engineering; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 660
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ces.2023.118525
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0009-2509

Abstract

Graphical abstract: Highlights: Externally pumped-recirculated photobioreactors (PBRs) proffers pure biohydrogen. The PBR's CFD modelling framework under uncertainty was presented herein. The framework's computational cost requirements and savings were detailed. Combined accelerated growth kinetics and parallel computing reduces compute times. Enhanced radial mixing was suggested to mitigate stagnant near-wall regions. Abstract: Optimisation and upscaling of biohydrogen production in externally pumped-recirculated photobioreactors (PBRs) are hampered by the infeasible computational cost of coupling hydrodynamics, to light transmission and bioreaction transport, through the column and peristaltic pump. This study approximates the complexities of peristaltic pump with inlet–outlet boundary conditions (BCs), introduces mean residence time ( t m ) for updating BCs, and unifies t m -dependent accelerated growth kinetics to parallelised Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) environment. Due to superior cost-savings compared to previous CFD studies, the bioprocess reliability under 5% coupled CFD-photo-bioreaction parameter uncertainties was investigated for the first time, and thoroughly validated with literature bioreaction data for a 1L PBR. The results agreed to within 10% of error for simulated velocities, identifying undesired regions with poor radial mixing, and showed similar output uncertainties between the coupled CFD-photo-bioreactions and pure photo-bioreactions models, indicating absence of numerical diffusion. Therefore, this approach has great potentials for modelling other similar biosystems.