Dunaliella salina cultivation in an indoor spiral-helical tubular photobioreactor

In the present study, a helical tubular photobioreactor with the combination of an open pond system and an airlift photobioreactor for cultivation of Dunaliella salina (unicellular green microalgae) which was purified from Urmia Lake was designed and the biomass production procedure and some other operational parameters were investigated. The salt concentration of the culture within the system was 1 M in modified Jonson’s medium. The tube substance was transparent PVC with the length of 25 m, 25 mm internal diameter, and the total volume of the system was 27 L. Eight LED lamps, each of them with the 10000 lux light intensity surrounded the tube and a 30000 lux LED lamps was on the top of the open section of the system. The cultivation periods were 30 and 21 days for double-stage and single-stage, respectively. The highest produced biomass was recorded on the 13th day of cultivation by the amount of 5.37 g l-1 for double-stage cultivation and 2.17 g l-1 on 11th day for the single-stage cultivation method.

Keywords:

Microalgae , Dunaliella salina , tubular photobioreactor , Biomass