Proceedings

This work utilised optical fibre sensors to measure bubble size distribution (BSD) of CO2-air bubbles in a 40-L photobioreactor as a means of enhancing the growth rate and yield of micro-algal biomass. BSD measurements were used to determine changes in volume and mass transfer rates of CO2-air bubbles. Experiments were conducted with different input CO2 concentrations throughout seven-day cultivation cycles. In comparison to tap water, increased micro-algal biomass concentrations resulted in lower detected values for the bubble size. This could be caused by the micro-algal cells affecting the liquid and bubble properties, or potential interference with the optical fibre probe, and further work is planned to clarify this.