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Biomimetic light dilution using side-emitting optical fiber for enhancing the productivity of microalgae reactors
Photoautotrophic microbes present vast opportunities for sustainable lipid production, CO(2) storage and green chemistry, for example, using microalgae beds to generate biofuels. A major challenge of microalgae cultivation and other photochemical reactors is the efficiency of light delivery. In orde...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6610090/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31270355 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-45955-w |
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author | Wondraczek, Lothar Gründler, Alexander Reupert, Aaron Wondraczek, Katrin Schmidt, Markus A. Pohnert, Georg Nolte, Stefan |
author_facet | Wondraczek, Lothar Gründler, Alexander Reupert, Aaron Wondraczek, Katrin Schmidt, Markus A. Pohnert, Georg Nolte, Stefan |
author_sort | Wondraczek, Lothar |
collection | PubMed |
description | Photoautotrophic microbes present vast opportunities for sustainable lipid production, CO(2) storage and green chemistry, for example, using microalgae beds to generate biofuels. A major challenge of microalgae cultivation and other photochemical reactors is the efficiency of light delivery. In order to break even on large scale, dedicated photon management will be required across all levels of reactor hierarchy – from the harvesting of light and its efficient injection and distribution inside of the reactor to the design of optical antenna and pathways of energy transfer on molecular scale. Here, we discuss a biomimetic approach for light dilution which enables homogeneous illumination of large reactor volumes with high optical density. We show that the immersion of side-emitting optical fiber within the reactor can enhance the fraction of illuminated volume by more than two orders of magnitude already at cell densities as low as ~5 10(4) ml(−1). Using the green algae Haematococcus pluvialis as a model system, we demonstrate an increase in the rate of reproduction by up to 93%. Beyond micoralgae, the versatile properties of side-emitting fiber enable the injection and dilution of light with tailored spectral and temporal characteristics into virtually any reactor containment. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6610090 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-66100902019-07-14 Biomimetic light dilution using side-emitting optical fiber for enhancing the productivity of microalgae reactors Wondraczek, Lothar Gründler, Alexander Reupert, Aaron Wondraczek, Katrin Schmidt, Markus A. Pohnert, Georg Nolte, Stefan Sci Rep Article Photoautotrophic microbes present vast opportunities for sustainable lipid production, CO(2) storage and green chemistry, for example, using microalgae beds to generate biofuels. A major challenge of microalgae cultivation and other photochemical reactors is the efficiency of light delivery. In order to break even on large scale, dedicated photon management will be required across all levels of reactor hierarchy – from the harvesting of light and its efficient injection and distribution inside of the reactor to the design of optical antenna and pathways of energy transfer on molecular scale. Here, we discuss a biomimetic approach for light dilution which enables homogeneous illumination of large reactor volumes with high optical density. We show that the immersion of side-emitting optical fiber within the reactor can enhance the fraction of illuminated volume by more than two orders of magnitude already at cell densities as low as ~5 10(4) ml(−1). Using the green algae Haematococcus pluvialis as a model system, we demonstrate an increase in the rate of reproduction by up to 93%. Beyond micoralgae, the versatile properties of side-emitting fiber enable the injection and dilution of light with tailored spectral and temporal characteristics into virtually any reactor containment. Nature Publishing Group UK 2019-07-03 /pmc/articles/PMC6610090/ /pubmed/31270355 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-45955-w Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Wondraczek, Lothar Gründler, Alexander Reupert, Aaron Wondraczek, Katrin Schmidt, Markus A. Pohnert, Georg Nolte, Stefan Biomimetic light dilution using side-emitting optical fiber for enhancing the productivity of microalgae reactors |
title | Biomimetic light dilution using side-emitting optical fiber for enhancing the productivity of microalgae reactors |
title_full | Biomimetic light dilution using side-emitting optical fiber for enhancing the productivity of microalgae reactors |
title_fullStr | Biomimetic light dilution using side-emitting optical fiber for enhancing the productivity of microalgae reactors |
title_full_unstemmed | Biomimetic light dilution using side-emitting optical fiber for enhancing the productivity of microalgae reactors |
title_short | Biomimetic light dilution using side-emitting optical fiber for enhancing the productivity of microalgae reactors |
title_sort | biomimetic light dilution using side-emitting optical fiber for enhancing the productivity of microalgae reactors |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6610090/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31270355 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-45955-w |
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