Abstract:
The development of innovative production processes and the optimization of photobioreactors play an important role in generating industrial competitive production technologies for phototrophic biofilms. With emerse photobioreactors a technology was introduced that allowed efficient surface attached cultivation of terrestrial cyanobacteria. However, the productivity of emerse photobioreactors depends on the available cultivation surface. By the implementation of biocarriers to the bioreactor volume, the cultivation surface can be increased which potentially improves productivity and thus the production of valuable compounds. To investigate the surface attached cultivation on biocarriers new photobioreactors need to be developed. Additive manufacturing (AM) offers new opportunities for the design of photobioreactors but producing the needed transparent parts can be challenging using AM techniques. In this study an emerse fixed bed photobioreactor was designed for the use of biocarriers and manufactured using different AM processes. To validate the suitability of the photobioreactor for phototrophic cultivation, the optical properties of three-dimensional (3D)-printed transparent parts and postprocessing techniques to improve luminous transmittance of the components were investigated. We found that stereolithography 3D printing can produce parts with a high luminous transmittance of over 85% and that optimal postprocessing by sanding and clear coating improved the clarity and transmittance to more than 90%. Using the design freedom of AM resulted in a bioreactor with reduced part count and improved handling. In summary, we found that modern 3D-printing technologies and materials are suitable for the manufacturing of functional photobioreactor prototypes.
摘要:
创新生产工艺的开发和光生物反应器的优化在产生具有工业竞争力的光养生物膜生产技术中起着重要作用。利用新兴的光生物反应器,引入了一种技术,可以有效地进行陆地蓝细菌的表面附着培养。然而,新兴光生物反应器的生产力取决于可用的培养表面。通过对生物反应器体积实施生物载体,可以增加培养表面,这潜在地提高了生产率并因此提高了有价值的化合物的生产。为了研究生物载体上的表面附着培养,需要开发新的光生物反应器。增材制造(AM)为光生物反应器的设计提供了新的机会,但使用AM技术生产所需的透明部件可能具有挑战性。在这项研究中,为使用生物载体设计了一种新兴的固定床光生物反应器,并使用不同的AM工艺制造。为了验证光生物反应器用于光养培养的适用性,研究了三维(3D)打印透明部件的光学性能以及提高部件透光率的后处理技术。我们发现,立体光刻3D打印可以生产出具有超过85%的高透光率的零件,并且通过打磨和透明涂层进行最佳后处理可以将透明度和透光率提高到90%以上。使用AM的设计自由度导致具有减少的零件数量和改进的处理的生物反应器。总之,我们发现,现代3D打印技术和材料适用于制造功能性光生物反应器原型。