Algal Research 10 (2015) 64–71

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Algal Research

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/algal

Investigation on the performance of raceway ponds with internal

structures by the means of CFD simulations and experiments
Jianke Huang a, Xiaoxing Qu b, Minxi Wan a, Jiangguo Ying a, Yuanguang Li a,⁎, Faochao Zhu b, Jun Wang c,
Guomin Shen a, Jianpei Chen b, Wei Li b,⁎⁎
a
State Key Laboratory of Bioreactor Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, PR China
b
State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, PR China
c
Jiaxing Zeyuan Bio-products Co., Ltd., Jiaxing 314007, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Raceway pond is the most widely used for large scale microalgae culture. In the present study, the Particle Image
Received 10 November 2014 Velocimetry technology was used to validate the reliability of the computational fluid dynamics simulation
Received in revised form 22 February 2015 model for raceway pond. In order to increase the mixing degree and decrease the power consumption, novel
Accepted 12 April 2015
mixers called sloping baffles and flow deflectors were combined in the raceway pond. The hydrodynamic char-
Available online 21 April 2015
acteristics of four types of raceway ponds (traditional raceway, raceway fitted with flow deflectors, raceway
Keywords:
fitted with sloping baffles, raceway fitted with both flow deflectors and sloping baffles) were simulated by
Raceway pond computational fluid dynamics. The results showed that the raceway pond fitted with sloping baffles and flow
Computational fluid dynamics deflectors reduced the power consumption by 10%, increased the average velocity by 6.8%, promoted the velocity
Particle Image Velocimetry along the light attenuation direction by 93% and significantly eliminated the dead zone compared with the
Mixing traditional raceway pond at the condition of rotation speed of paddlewheel of 20 rpm. Lastly, cultivation of
Microalgae cultivation Chlorella pyrenoidosa experiments was conducted, and the results indicated that the combination of sloping
baffles and flow deflectors can significantly improve the productivity of microalgae.
© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Photobioreactor (PBR) is an important device for microalgae
culture, which can be divided into closed and open types. Closed
photobioreactor is expensive for construction, operation and main-
tenance, and difficult to scale-up [1], which is not suitable for
mass culture of microalgae with low cost. However, closed
photobioreactor is suitable for fast and efficient microalgae seed
propagation as it can achieve high microalgae density and productivity
[2].
Open types, especially the raceway pond (RWP), are the most widely
used culture system for large scale microalgae cultivation. RWP is
generally an annular pond with two or more circulating channels, and
depth of fluid usually is 20–40 cm [3]. It relies on the paddlewheel to
promote fluid flow. The advantages of RWP are simply to structure,
operate and scale-up, resulting in low costs for production and operation.
RWP was first built in 1950s [4], but the main structure has changed a
little from then on.
⁎ Correspondence to: Y. Li, Mail Box 301, Meilong Road 130, Shanghai 200237, PR China.
⁎⁎ Correspondence to: W. Li, Mail Box 443, Meilong Road 130, Shanghai 200237, PR
China.
E-mail addresses: jkehuang@163.com (J. Huang), ygli@ecust.edu.cn (Y. Li),
liwei@ecust.edu.cn (W. Li).
Recently, design and optimization of PBR have been used by compu-
tational fluid dynamics (CFD) technology that is a low cost and high
efficiency method [5]. CFD has been mainly employed to optimize
closed photobioreactors [6–11]. The hydrodynamic and mixing condi-
tions in a torus photobioreactor were investigated by CFD, and the
numerical model was further validated by Particle Image Velocimetry
(PIV) test [12]. Wu and Song [13] studied the mixing conditions in a
series of spiral tube PBRs, and obtained the light intensity histories
of cells by CFD simulation. Recently, CFD has gradually been used to
optimize the RWP. Configurations of the bend of RWP were simulated
by the CFD. The results showed that the new designs and bend with
three flow deflectors could reduce the energy loss and the incidence
of stagnation regions [14]. Sompech et al. [4] also found that the race-
way configuration with three semicircular deflector baffles was the
most energy efficient and could obviously eliminate the dead zones.
Chiaramonti et al. [15] designed a raceway pond where its paddlewheel
was substituted by a propeller. The power of the new design was about
60% less than that of the traditional raceway pond. Xu et al. [16] de-
signed a novel raceway pond which could create better mixing for
microalgae photoautotrophic growth. In the majority of researches
on RWP, the energy efficiency and flow velocity were the main param-
eters to be considered, but mixing along the light attenuation direction
was not focused. In addition, there were few structures designed to
promote the flow velocity along the light attenuation direction.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.algal.2015.04.012
2211-9264/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 J. Huang et al. / Algal Research 10 (2015) 64–71
In addition, the PIV technique has been increasingly important
in validating the CFD simulation [17]. The PIV is a kind of non-contact,
transient and accurate flow measurement method. The current PIV
technology has been mainly applied to the closed photobioreactors
[7,12,18], conventional stirred tank reactors [19] and other types of
reactor. However, the studies of flow field in RWPs employing PIV
have rarely been reported in literatures.
In the present study, the PIV testing result for the small-scale race-
way ponds was compared with the CFD simulation results, verifying
the reliability of the CFD simulation. In order to increase the mixing
degree and decrease the power consumption, kinds of novel mixers
called sloping baffles and flow deflectors were both fitted in the RWP,
in which the hydrodynamic characteristics were simulated by CFD
method. Lastly, batch cultures of microalgae were conducted outdoor
to validate the function of the sloping baffles and flow deflectors.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Geometries of RWPs
2.1.1. Configuration of RWP for PIV experiment
A small-scale RWP for PIV experiment was made of acrylic with
dimensions of 1.4 m in length, 0.4 m in width and 0.3 m in depth
(Fig. 1-a). During the PIV experiment, the fluid height was set to
0.2 m. A square groove made of the same material was fitted at one
side of the bend of the RWP, which was used to decline the refraction
of the laser caused by the curved surface during the PIV experiment.
Four dismountable deflectors were fitted in the two bends. An eight-
bladed paddlewheel installed inside the one channel of RWP was used
to generate the mixing.
2.1.2. Configuration of the middle-scale RWPs
The middle-scale RWPs for microalgae culture were made of ce-
ment. The length of pond was 10 m and the width of each straight chan-
nel was 0.93 m (Fig. 1-c). The fluid height was maintained to 0.15 m
for both CFD simulation and microalgae cultivation. The diameter of
Fig. 1. Diagram of the small-scale raceway pond (a), coordinate system for PIV (b), and middle-scale raceway ponds with sloping baffles (c).
65
paddlewheel was 42.5 cm with eight blades. The length and width of
blade were 80 cm and 20 cm, respectively. The clearance between the
lowest edge of blades and the bottom of pond was 0.3 cm. The clearance
between the blade and the lateral walls was 0.65 cm.
Four alternative geometries were designed and simulated (Fig. 2).
RWP-I is a traditional raceway pond widely used at present. RWP-II
is a raceway pond fitted with two semicircular flow deflectors in each
bend. In the RWP-III, there are four sloping baffles fixed at the bottom
of the straight channel. RWP-IV is a raceway pond both fitted with semi-
circular flow deflectors and the sloping baffles. The length of sloping
baffle was 45 cm, which was about one half of the width of a single
channel. The width of sloping baffle was 10 cm. The angle of slope
was 30°. The distance between the bottom of channel and the lowest
edge of sloping baffles was 40 mm (Fig. 1-c).
2.2. PIV experiment
Two-dimensional PIV system of ILA Company in German was used
in the experiment. The system was mainly composed of a pulsed laser
light source, lens set, high frame rate CCD camera, synchronizer and a
computer. Clear water was used as a working medium. Tracer particle
was the Al2O3 with a diameter of 10 μm. The coordinate system of
the RWP for PIV experiment was shown in Fig. 1-b. The PIV experi-
ments were conducted in two conditions including with and without
the flow deflectors in RWP, respectively. In order to obtain the whole
fluid field in the raceway pond, two planes were selected to measure
the fluid velocity. Plane-1 was located at the bend (x = 1.25 m,
y = − 0.18–0.18 m), and plane-2 was located at the other side of
the channel (x = 0.2–1.36 m, y = 0.11 m).
2.3. Simulation model
2.3.1. Mesh generation
The raceway pond was divided into two domains: the paddle wheel
and the raceway. The geometry model of the raceway pond and its
hexahedral mesh was created by the software ANSYS ICEM 12.1. The
66 J. Huang et al. / Algal Research 10 (2015) 64–71
Fig. 2. Sketches of the four different structures of raceway ponds.
paddlewheel and raceway pond contained approximately 80,000 and
300,000 elements, respectively.
In order to avoid the simulation results affected by the number of
grid [14], grid independence was checked by reanalyzing the RWP
with a finer grid of about 600,000 elements. The results showed only
3.9% change in the computed values of average flow velocity. In addition,
taking into account the calculation time, the grid of about 300,000 ele-
ments was used for the simulation.
2.3.2. Boundary conditions
The flow field of the raceway pond with fluid height of 200 mm was
simulated using the software ANSYS CFX 12.1. Since only a portion of
the paddle wheel submerged in the liquid, the flow field in the raceway
pond generated by the rotating of the paddle wheel exhibited obvious
periodicity; thus, the transient model was selected. The sliding mesh
method was used to simulate the rotation of the paddle wheel, and the
“Transient Rotor-Stator” method was employed to connect the interface
of two domains. The standard k-ε model was adopted to describe the
turbulent flow behavior in the RWPs. Wall function “scalable” was applied
to obtain a satisfactory result near the wall, and the boundary condition of
the top was set as “opening”.
2.4. Cultivation conditions and measurements
Chlorella pyrenoidosa was obtained from the Institute of Hydrobiolo-
gy, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Wuhan, China). The initial inoculated
concentration in the RWPs was about 0.2 g L−1. The microalgae cells were
cultivated under natural illumination with a modified F–Si medium [20].
The temperatures in the RWPs were not controlled. CO2 was supplied
by sparging air supplemented with 5% CO2 to the system through four
sparger arranged evenly in the RWPs. The pH of cultures was kept around
7 by adjusting the amount of CO2. Biomass concentration was measured
through the method used in our previous study [20].
The biomass productivity was measured in the photoautotrophic
culture, and the photosynthetic efficiency (PE) was also calculated. In
order to quantify the energetic performance of the RWPs, P/E (biomass
productivity per unit energy input, g W−1 d−1) defined by Pegallapati
and Nirmalakhandan [21] was also calculated.
The photosynthetic efficiency is defined as the amount of energy
stored in the generated biomass per unit of radiation energy absorbed
by the culture, which can be calculated from the equation [22]:
P  H biomass P  Hbiomass
PE ¼ ¼ ð1Þ
F vol I av  K a  X b
where P is the volumetric biomass productivity (g L−1 d−1), Hbiomass is
the combustion enthalpy of C. pyrenoidosa, which is 18.59 kJ g−1 [23].
Fvol is the photon flux absorbed per unit volume (kJ L−1 d−1), Iav is the
average irradiance inside the RWP (μmol m−2 s−1), Ka is the extinction
coefficient for biomass (m2 g−1), and Xb is the biomass concentration
(g L−1).
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Comparison of the PIV measurement and CFD simulation
Flow conditions in the RWP were experimentally investigated by the
PIV method to validate numerical predictions. It was shown in Fig. 3 that
the results of CFD simulation and PIV test were obtained at the same lo-
cations on the line of the height of 100 mm in Plane-1 and Plane-2, re-
spectively. The fluid velocities, including velocity components of x
direction (Ux), y direction (Uy) and z direction (Uz) calculated by CFD,
are greatly consistent with those measured by the PIV in the RWPs
both with and without flow deflectors. Strictly speaking, there are still
existing slight differences in fluid velocity between CFD simulation
and PIV measurement, especially in the Plane-1 of RWP with deflector.
Due to a complicated structure space among the deflector in the bend
of RWP, it may lead to uncertainty in the measure during the PIV test.
However, the fluid velocity predicted by CFD is basically identical with
measured one. Thus, the numerical predictions were preferably validat-
ed by the PIV test, indicating that the established transient CFD simula-
tion model can be adopted to simulate precisely the fluid field in the
RWP.
Fig. 3 also showed that the radial velocities, Uy and Ux, in the RWP
with the deflectors are greater than those in the RWP without the deflec-
tors, but the axial velocity, Uz, in the RWP with the deflectors is lower
than that in the RWP without the deflectors. Therefore, the deflectors
could increase Uy and Ux, but decrease Uz. The rule of deflectors affecting
fluid velocity in the small-scale RWP is same to that in the middle-scale
RWP according to the results from CFD simulation.
3.2. Hydrodynamics inside RWP with different configurations
3.2.1. Average flow velocity
The average flow velocity in the four different types of RWPs with
various rotational speeds of paddlewheel was shown in Fig. 4-a.
Among all range of the paddlewheel speeds, the greatest average flow
velocity was produced in the RWP-II fitted with two semicircular flow
deflectors. Compared to the traditional raceway pond (RWP-I), the
average flow velocity in the RWP-II increased by 29% when the speed
of the paddlewheel was 20 rpm. Sompech et al. [4] and Liffman et al.
[14] also found that the RWP with flow deflectors consumed less energy
than traditional RWP to achieve a given velocity. The reason for this
phenomenon was that the deflectors can make the fluid move smoothly
through the bend of the RWP, and avoid currents to be chaotic and dis-
ordered, as well as avoid the substantial loss of fluid kinetic energy. That
means the deflector can reduce the loss of the fluid pressure head, and
thus can reduce the power consumption of the paddlewheels. The low-
est fluid velocity was generated in the RWP-III because of the apparent
resistance caused by the sloping baffles. As shown in the velocity pro-
files (Fig. 5-a), the fluid velocity was significantly reduced when the
fluid passed through the sloping baffles. The flow deflectors and sloping
baffle were both equipped in the RWP-IV, in which the fluid velocity
was increased by 6.8% compared with that in RWP-I when the rotational
speed of the paddlewheel was 20 rpm. This result was related to the
combined function of sloping baffles and deflectors. The flow deflectors
 J. Huang et al. / Algal Research 10 (2015) 64–71 67

Fig. 3. Comparison of fluid velocity obtained by the PIV test and CFD simulation.

offset the resistance caused by the sloping baffles and then the average
flow velocity could be higher than the traditional raceway pond.
3.2.2. Dead zones inside the RWPs
The regions where the fluid velocity was lower than 0.1 m s−1 were
characterized as dead zones [4]. Algae cells will deposit and oxygen
concentration will increase in the dead zones, which have a negative
influence on the cell metabolism [7]. The reduction of dead zones in a
flat plate PBR will increase the microalgae cell density [11]. Therefore,
dead zone should be avoided as far as possible in the PBR. The percent-
age area of dead zones (DZs) in the four RWPs was shown in Fig. 4-b. At
the same rotational speed of paddlewheel, DZs in the RWPs with flow
68 J. Huang et al. / Algal Research 10 (2015) 64–71

0.55
the RWPs without flow deflectors (RWP-I and RWP-III) were mostly
RWP-I RWP-II located at the end of the central divider and ahead of the paddlewheel
0.50 RWP-III RWP-IV
due to large circulating eddies (Fig. 5-b). Because the sloping baffles fitted
in the RWP-III disturbed the circulating eddies, the DZ inside RWP-III was
Average velocity (m s )
-1

0.45
smaller than that inside RWP-I.
0.40
3.2.3. Power consumption
The theoretical power can be calculated by the following equa-
0.35
tion [4]:
0.30
CD  ρ  A  v3
Pc ¼ ð2Þ
0.25 a 2

0.20 where CD is the drag coefficient for paddlewheels (CD = 1.8). ρ

12 14 16 18 20 (kg m−3) is the density of the fluid. A (m2) is the projected area of the
paddlewheel perpendicular to the direction of motion. v (m s− 1) is
10 the velocity of the paddlewheel relative to fluid. The power calculated
RWP-I RWP-II is based on the frictional energy dissipation [4].
9 RWP-III RWP-IV Measured power consumption (Pm), theoretical power (Pc) and the
8 efficiency of the paddlewheel were shown in Table 1. The efficiency of
Percentage of dead zone (%)

7 the paddlewheel was obtained as the ratio between Pc and Pm:

6 Pc
η¼ : ð3Þ
5 Pm
4
Large majority of the head losses are located at the bend [14] and the
3 flow deflectors can effectively reduce the head losses at the bend, thus
2 the power consumptions of the RWP-II and RWP-IV with the flow de-
b flectors were lower than the others. Because of the resistance of sloping
1
baffles, the power of the RWP-III was the greatest among four RWPs.
0 The measured power of the RWP-IV was increased by 3.7% compared
12 14 16 18 20
with RWP-II at the speed of paddlewheel of 20 rpm (Table 1). But the
power of the RWP-IV is down by 10% compared with the RWP-I,
13 which means that the flow deflectors offset the resistance caused by
RWP-I RWP-II
12 the sloping baffles. Therefore, the power of raceway pond with both
RWP-III RWP-IV
flow deflectors and sloping baffles was lower than that of traditional
11 raceway pond. The increase of power consumption due to the resistance
10 of the sloping baffles was acceptable.
The efficiencies of paddlewheel were various with different RWPs
Uz(×10 m s )
-1

9 and paddlewheel speeds (Table 1). The efficiency of paddlewheel of

RWP-II at speed of 14 rpm was the lowest, only 1.06%. The efficiency
-3

8
7 The comparable results about 5–10% efficiency of paddlewheel were
6
5 c
4
12 14 16 18 20
Speed of paddle wheel (rpm)
Fig. 4. The results of average velocity (a), percentage of dead zones (b) and Uz (c) inside
four types of RWPs with different rotation speeds.
deflectors (RWP-II and RWP-IV) were apparently smaller than that in
the other RWPs. The DZ in RWP-IV was a little larger than that in
RWP-II because of the installation of sloping baffles. When the speed
of paddlewheel was increased from 12 rpm to 20 rpm, the DZ in RWP-II
reduced from 0.54% to 0.30%, and the DZ in RWP-IV reduced from 0.70%
to 0.43%, respectively. In the study of Sompech et al. [4], the DZ of RWP
with two flow deflectors arranged from 0.4% to 3.5%. This phenomenon
indicated that the percent of DZ could be decreased by increasing the
rotation speed of paddlewheel. The DZ inside a flat plate PBR developed
by Yu et al. [11] was about 1%. Hence, the flow deflectors fitted in
the RWP were effective in reducing DZ, and the increase of DZ caused
by the sloping baffles was acceptable. In addition, the dead zones inside
of paddlewheel of RWP-III at speed of 20 rpm was the highest (5.36%).
reported by Chiaramonti et al. [15]. Richmond [24] reported research
work performed by Argaman and Spivak with an overall efficiency
around 4%. However, higher efficiency of paddlewheel reaching 40%
was also reported by Lundquist et al. [3]. Therefore, further efforts
should be conducted to enhance the efficiency of paddlewheel.
3.2.4. Fluid velocity along the light attenuation direction
Because of the light attenuation, the light can only penetrate the
algae culture broth to a limited depth. Therefore, the cells in the bottom
cannot receive enough light energy. Thus it is important to promote
mixing along the light attenuation direction to homogenize light
received by each cell. Arrays of foils like the airplane wings fitted in a
microalgae culture flume effectively promoted the mixing along the
light attenuation direction [25]. In the research of Huang et al. [26],
the growth rate of C. pyrenoidosa had a direct correlation with fluid
velocity along the light attenuation direction (Uz). The faster of Uz
means the more efficient light utilization. For the RWP, the light atten-
uation is along the vertical direction because the light penetrates from
the top surface of the culture broth. The faster Uz indicated the higher
degree of mixing in the vertical direction. Therefore, the Uz is chosen
as a critical parameter to evaluate the performance of the RWP.
The fluid velocity along the light attenuation direction versus the
speed of paddlewheel was shown in Fig. 4-c. Uz in the RWP-II was the
 J. Huang et al. / Algal Research 10 (2015) 64–71 69

Fig. 5. Profiles of average velocity (a), dead zone (b) and Uz (c) within different raceway ponds (rotational speed 20 rpm, at a horizontal plane located 0.1 m above the bottom of RWP).

lowest because the flow deflectors make the fluid flow more smoothly.
Uz in the RWP-IV was greatest among the four RWPs. When the speed
of paddlewheel was 20 rpm, the Uz in RWP-IV increased by 127% com-
pared to that of the RWP-II, and increased by 93% compared to that of
RWP-I. From the contour of Uz (Fig. 5-c), the Uz was very small in
the straight channel of the RWP-I and RWP-II. The Uz in the straight
channel of RWP-III and RWP-IV was enhanced by the sloping baffles,
which will facilitate the motion frequency of microalgae moving from
the dark zone at the bottom to the light zone near the surface.
Comparing with the traditional raceway pond, the average fluid
velocity and Uz in RWP-IV are greater, and the power consumption
and DZ are lower. Thus, the raceway pond fitted with both sloping baf-
fles and flow deflectors has a great potential in the microalgae cultiva-
tion with high efficiency and low cost.
[3]. Lundquist et al. [3] reported that the optimal velocity in the pond is
0.2–0.3 m s−1, and the average velocity about 0.1–0.2 m s−1 was also
reported by Sompech et al. [4]. Weissman et al. [27] concluded that a
liquid velocity of 0.2 m s−1 is suitable for the growth of microalgae
cultures in RWP. In the RWP-IV, the average fluid velocity raised from
0.27 m s− 1 to 0.43 m s− 1 as the speed of paddlewheel ranged from
12 rpm to 20 rpm, the dead zones and Uz only have little changes as
the increase in the speed of paddlewheel. However, power consump-
tion drastically increased with the increase in the speed of paddlewheel.
The power of paddlewheel in the RWP-IV increased by 38.7% (from
255 W to 353.8 W), when the speed increased from 14 rpm to 20 rpm.
Therefore, from overall consideration, the suitable speed of paddle-
wheel in RWP-IV is around 14 rpm at which the fluid velocity achieved
0.3 m s−1.

3.3. The analysis of suitable rang of paddlewheel speed

3.4. Photoautotrophic cultivation of microalgae in the RWPs
As the speed of paddlewheel increased, the velocity increased dras-
tically, but the power consumption will also rise drastically (Fig. 4-a). Cultivation of C. pyrenoidosa in the RWPs was conducted to examine
Lower velocity results in algae settling and would require too many the effects of the sloping baffles and flow deflectors on microalgae
carbonation stations, but higher velocity will consume too much energy cultivation. Identical cell concentrations were initially provided to the
cultures in the RWPs. All the experiments lasted for 3 days, and were
conducted at Jiaxing city (east longitude 120°, north latitude 30°), in
Zhejiang province, China. The fluid height for all experiment is kept at
Table 1
Power consumption of the four different RWPs.
15 cm. The average light intensity was calculated based on sunshine
duration. Because of the limitation by the reality condition, only two
Typea 14 rpm 20 rpm RWPs can be used for the experiment at the same time. Experiments 1
Pmb (W) c
Pc (W) ηd
Pm (W) Pc (W) η and 2 were the comparisons between the RWP-I and RWP-IV. Experi-
RWP-I 272.5 5.5 2.02 392.5 19.1 4.86 ments 3 and 4 focused on the performance of RWP-II and RWP-IV. The
RWP-II 252.2 2.7 1.06 341.3 8.20 2.41 results of photoautotrophic cultivation of C. pyrenoidosa, including
RWP-III 276.7 6.8 2.46 418.1 22.4 5.36 areal productivity, PE and P/E, were shown in Table 2.
RWP-IV 255.0 5.2 2.02 353.8 16.0 4.52
In experiment 3, the areal productivity of C. pyrenoidosa in RWP-IV
a
RWP-I: traditional raceway pond; RWP-II: raceway pond fitted with flow deflectors; (14.53 g m− 2 d−1) increased by 65% compared to that in RWP-II
RWP-III: raceway pond fitted with sloping baffles; RWP-IV: raceway pond fitted with (8.82 g m−2 d−1). This result clearly showed that the sloping baffles
sloping baffles and flow deflectors.
b
Pm: measured power consumption.
are beneficial to the photoautotrophic growth of microalgae. In experi-
c
Pc: theoretical power. ment 2, the areal productivity (8.61 g m−2 d−1) and power (255.0 W)
d
η: efficiency of the paddlewheel. in RWP-IV increased by 38% and decreased by 6.4% compared with
70 J. Huang et al. / Algal Research 10 (2015) 64–71

Table 2 materials and photobioreactors, Wei Li with contributions of final

The results of photoautotrophic cultivation of Chlorella pyrenoidosa in the RWPs. approval of the article and administrative and logistic support, and
Batch Typea Productivity (g PE P/E (g Average light intensity Yuanguang Li and Wei Li are both corresponding authors who took
m−2 d−1) (%) W−1 d−1) (μmol m−2 s−1) the responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, their
1 RWP-I 8.53 2.707 0.59 434.16 emails are ygli@ecust.edu.cn and liwei@ecust.edu.cn, respectively.
RWP-IV 9.47 2.985 0.71
2 RWP-I 6.24 2.238 0.43 445.14
RWP-IV 8.61 3.015 0.64 Acknowledgments
3 RWP-II 8.82 1.463 0.49 962.82
RWP-IV 14.53 2.315 0.79
This research was funded by National Basic Research Program China
4 RWP-II 4.95 3.026 0.37 192.24
RWP-IV 6.21 3.753 0.46 (973 Program: 2011CB200903), National High Technology Research
a
and Development Program (863 Programs: 2013AA065804 and
RWP-I: traditional raceway pond; RWP-II: raceway pond fitted with flow deflectors;
RWP-III: raceway pond fitted with sloping baffles; RWP-IV: raceway pond fitted with
2012AA050101), National Natural Science Foundation of China
sloping baffles and flow deflectors. (31372548 and 31402319), National Key Technologies R&D Program
(2011BAD14B02 and 2011BAD23B04).

those in RWP-I (6.24 g m−2 d−1 and 272.5 W), respectively. Addition-
ally, these experiments were conducted in different times, and the
weather conditions especially light intensity were different from batch
to batch. The light intensity during batch 3 experiment was much higher
than that in other batches; thus, algal productivity in batch 3 experi-
ment is much greater than that in other batches.
Therefore, the combination of sloping baffles and flow deflectors
cannot only reduce the power consumption but also enhance the algal
productivity. In addition, in all experiments, P/E and PE in the RWP-IV
with flow deflectors and sloping baffles were the maximum (Table 2),
indicating that the sloping baffles and flow deflectors are very impor-
tant and useful for microalgae cultivation.
At the same speed of paddlewheel, the power of RWP-IV was higher
than that of RWP-II (Table 1); however, the productivity per unit energy
input of RWP-IV was greater than that of RWP-II (Table 2). P/E is more
suitable to evaluate the energetic performance of the RWP. The maxi-
mum P/E achieved 0.79 g w−1 d−1 in RWP-IV, which was better than
0.60–0.69 g w−1 d−1 reported in the previous study [28]. In the present
study, the maximum photosynthetic efficiency reached 3.75%, which
was little lower than that of 4.15% obtained in 0.986 m2 raceway pond
[29] and 5.3% reported by Shelef et al. [30]. However, Zittelli et al. [31]
pointed out that PE of 4–5% is rarely reached with algal cultures under
natural conditions, and higher PE doesn't mean higher productivity
when the culture conditions especially the irradiances are different.
4. Conclusion
The reliability of the numerical prediction of fluid velocity in the
RWP was validated by the PIV measurement, indicating that an accurate
CFD simulation model for simulating RWP is established. According
to the simulation results, the middle-scale RWP fitted with sloping
baffles and flow deflectors can reduce the power consumption, increase
the average velocity, decrease the dead zone, and promote the velocity
along the light attenuation direction. The effectiveness of the sloping
baffles and flow deflectors was further verified by the experiments of
C. pyrenoidosa cultivation. The combination of the sloping baffles and
flow deflectors showed a huge potential in high efficient microalgae
culture with low power consumption.
Contributions declaration
Jianke Huang with the contributions of conception and design of the
study, and analysis and interpretation of the data, Xiaoxing Qu with
contributions of drafting of the article, Minxi Wan with contributions
of critical revision of the article for important intellectual content,
Jiangguo Ying, Faochao Zhu, and Jun Wang with contributions of statis-
tical expertise and collection and assembly of the data, Yuanguang
Li with contributions of obtaining of funding and technical and logis-
tical support, Guomin Shen with contributions of provision of study
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