Growth Kinetics for Microalgae Grown in Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) medium at various CO₂ Levels

This paper sought to find the growth kinetic data of maximum specific growth rate (μ_max) and substrate saturation constant (K_S) for a microalgal reaction system over various dissolved CO₂ levels (0.04, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.8, 1.0, 5.0, 10.0% v/v) at a constant sparging rate of 1.2 vvm, by using logistic model and Monod kinetics. The reaction system consisted of microalgae growing in palm oil mill effluent (POME) medium in 1 L flask with constant light illumination and sparged with the specified CO₂ gas mixture. It is found from the experimental works that the values of μ_max and K_S to be at 0.04958 h^-1 and 0.03523% (v/v) respectively. The results also showed that utilizing CO₂ levels (v/v) in the sparging gas mixture more than 1% (v/v) would not improve microalgae growth significantly as expressed in the values of specific growth rate µ. These data and information are critically important for bioreactor scaling up purposes, especially bioreactor system dedicated for microalgae products and CO₂ sequestration. (paper)