2. Limitations of current algal bioreactors for biofuel
production
Microalgae have distinct advantages such as non-competition
with food crops over limited land, high biomass productivity, and
high lipid content. Although microalgae have these advantages,
the current biofuel from microalgae has not reached competitive
prices. Compared to plant oils, microalgal oil is estimated to be
3–4 times more expensive [19]. The limiting factors of biofuel production
using microalgae are the cultivation and harvest steps [20].
Cultivation accounts for 40% of the cost and energy in microalgal
biofuel production [21]. Major factors that affect cultivation are
nutrient supply, land and water availability, gas transfer and
exchange, photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) delivery and
culture integrity. The harvest step takes 20–30% of the total
microalgal biofuel cost [20].
2.1. Types of bioreactors
Most of the current algal bioreactors rely on suspended cultures,
which can be categorized into open and closed systems. No
matter which type is used, suspended culture systems need huge
amount of energy to harvest algal cells and eliminate the water
in downstream. The harvest costs also account for 20–30% of algal
biofuel production [20]. The open pond culture system can be considered
the simplest and most economical method among algae
cultivation systems. Several types of open pond system including
raceway pond, slope system and circular ponds have been developed
[7,22]. The advantage of open system is that the construction
and operation cost is cheaper than those of closed system. However,
its disadvantages can offset the advantages. The open pond
system has low biomass productivity due to several limitations
(typical biomass productivity of 4–21 g m2 d1) [6,23]. The limitations
include temperature fluctuation, low CO2 transfer, limited
light transmission and contamination with other organisms such
as protozoa [20]. Evaporation is also disadvantageous because it can change the ionic strength. In contrast, closed culture systems
(engineered photobioreactors) have been developed to overcome
the limitations of open culture systems. There is less of a contamination
problem and it is easy to control light, temperature and
CO2. Thus it has higher productivity compared to the open system.
For instance, tubular and flat panel photobioreactors (PBR) showed
the areal biomass productivity of 13–47.7 g m2 d1 for the tubular
PBR and 10.2–22.8 g m2 d1 for the flat panel PBR [24,25]. However,
due to high operation and construction costs, it is more suitable
to produce high-value products such as b-carotene,
astaxanthin, and C-phycocyanin