CFD Simulation of an Airlift-Driven Raceway Bioreactor for Microalgae Cultivation

The objective of this paper is to optimize the design and structure of an airlift-driven raceway bioreactor via the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation for microalgae cultivation. The calculated results showed that the airlift-driven raceway bioreactor had maximum average velocity when setting two airlift tubes (of 350 mm in length) in the middle, furthermore adding the inducing baffle structure. Under this condition, minimum dead zone ratio was obtained, which was advantageous to the microalgae cultivaiton.