A reliable multi-nutrient model for the rapid production of high-density microalgal biomass over a broad spectrum of mixotrophic conditions

Jihed Bentahar; Jean-Sébastien Deschênes

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2023.129162

A reliable multi-nutrient model for the rapid production of high-density microalgal biomass over a broad spectrum of mixotrophic conditions

Bioresour Technol. 2023 Aug:381:129162. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2023.129162. Epub 2023 May 11.

Authors

Jihed Bentahar¹, Jean-Sébastien Deschênes²

Affiliations

¹ Département de mathématiques, d'informatique et de génie, Collectif de recherche appliquée aux bioprocédés et à la chimie de l'environnement (CRABE), Université du Québec à Rimouski, 300, Allée des Ursulines, Rimouski, Québec G5L 3A1, Canada; Département des sciences des aliments, Institut sur la Nutrition et les Aliments Fonctionnels (INAF), Faculté des sciences de l'agriculture et de l'alimentation, Université Laval, 2425, rue de l'Agriculture, Québec G1V 0A6, Canada. Electronic address: jihed.bentahar2@uqar.ca.
² Département de mathématiques, d'informatique et de génie, Collectif de recherche appliquée aux bioprocédés et à la chimie de l'environnement (CRABE), Université du Québec à Rimouski, 300, Allée des Ursulines, Rimouski, Québec G5L 3A1, Canada; Département des sciences des aliments, Institut sur la Nutrition et les Aliments Fonctionnels (INAF), Faculté des sciences de l'agriculture et de l'alimentation, Université Laval, 2425, rue de l'Agriculture, Québec G1V 0A6, Canada.

PMID: 37178778
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2023.129162

Abstract

The superior microalgal biomass productivities obtained under mixotrophic conditions have been widely demonstrated. However, to attain the full potential of the method, optimal conditions for biomass production and resource utilization need to be determined and successfully exploited throughout the process operation. Detailed kinetic mathematical models have often proved most efficient tools for predicting process behavior and governing its overall operation. This paper presents an extensive study for obtaining a highly reliable model for mixotrophic production of microalgae covering a wide set and range of nutritional conditions (10-fold the concentration range of Bold's Basal Medium) and biomass yields up to 6.68 g.L^-1 after only 6 days. The final reduced model includes a total of five state variables and nine parameters: model calibration resulted in very small 95% confidence intervals and relative errors below 5% for all parameters. Model validation showed high reliability with R² correlation values between 0.77 and 0.99.

Keywords: Biomass production; Microalgae; Mixotrophic conditions; Model validation; Multi-nutrient kinetic model.

MeSH terms

Biomass
Microalgae*
Models, Theoretical
Reproducibility of Results