Controlling the bottom topography of a microalgal pond to optimize productivity

TL;DR

This paper introduces a coupled biological and hydrodynamic model for microalgae growth in raceway ponds, demonstrating that optimizing pond topography can significantly increase biomass productivity.

Contribution

It presents a novel integrated model combining biological growth and fluid dynamics, and an optimization method for pond topography to enhance productivity.

Findings

Non-flat topographies improve microalgal biomass yield

Optimization of pond shape can significantly increase productivity

Coupled modeling approach effectively guides pond design improvements

Abstract

We present a coupled model describing growth of microalgae in a raceway cultivation process, accounting for hydrodynamics. Our approach combines a biological model (based on the Han model) and shallow water dynamics equations that model the fluid into the raceway. We then describe an optimization procedure dealing with the topography to maximize the biomass production over one cycle (one lap of the raceway). The results show that non-flat topographies enhance microalgal productivity.