Absorption of CO2 in algal mass culture systems: a different characterization approach
1991
Talbot, P. | Gortares, M.P. | Lencki, R.W. | De La Noue, J.
For the characterization of CO2 absorption in aerated microalgal culture systems, a different approach based on KLa(O2) determination and transformation was studied. To confirm the validity of this method, the influence of reactions between CO2 and compounds (OH(-), H2O, and NH3) present in the culture medium upon the absorption mechanism was evaluated under different physical and chemical culture conditions. Under these conditions, knowledge of the relative magnitudes of the diffusion and reaction kinetics permitted the evaluation of their relative importance. For the determination of the parameters required for the calculation of the CO2 absorption constant, empirical correlations for kL(O) and a were used that had been previously verified with experimental data for O2 absorption. Since, for the conditions studied, the absorption rate was shown to be independent of the chemical reactions taking place in the liquid phase, the KLa for CO2 could be directly related to the KLa for O2 by a simple factor that took into account the difference in aqueous diffusivity of the two gases. Thus, using methods developed for determining O2 absorption in gas-liquid contactors, it is possible to adequately characterize CO2 absorption for laboratory and pilot scale algal production systems.
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