Even though microalgae are able to produce various valuable metabolites, microalgal culture on an industrial scale still faces challenging difficulties. Open systems may be cheaper to construct, easier to operate and maintain, and possess greater surface area to volume ratio, but they are also easily contaminated, have high water loss due to evaporation, and suffer from unfavorable weather. On the other hand, closed photobioreactor systems possess higher biomass yields, better control over culture parameters, and lower contamination risks. However, photobioreactors are costlier to construct and maintain. Thus, a hybrid semi‐closed thin layer cascade photobioreactor was proposed to cultivate high‐density microalgal cultures for biodiesel production. Computational fluid dynamics analysis was carried out to observe fluid behavior in the hybrid photobioreactor design. The simulation results showed satisfactory performance in the improved design, making the photobioreactor a potential candidate for microalgal biodiesel production.

中文翻译：

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用于微藻生物柴油合成的混合薄层级联光生物反应器的概念设计

尽管微藻能够产生各种有价值的代谢产物，但是在工业规模上进行微藻培养仍然面临挑战。开放式系统的建造成本可能较低，易于操作和维护，并且具有更大的表面积与体积之比，但它们也很容易被污染，由于蒸发而造成的高失水量以及恶劣的天气。另一方面，封闭的光生物反应器系统具有更高的生物量产量，对培养参数的更好控制以及更低的污染风险。但是，光生物反应器的构建和维护成本较高。因此，提出了一种混合半封闭薄层级联光生物反应器，以培养高密度的微藻培养物以生产生物柴油。进行了计算流体动力学分析，以观察混合光生物反应器设计中的流体行为。仿真结果表明，改进的设计具有令人满意的性能，使光生物反应器成为微藻生物柴油生产的潜在候选者。