Effect of light supply on CO 2 capture from atmosphere by Chlorella vulgaris and Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata

J. Pires (), A. Gonçalves, F. Martins, M. Alvim-Ferraz and M. Simões

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 2014, vol. 19, issue 7, 1109-1117

Abstract: Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) is one of the primary greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Consequently, emission reduction technologies will be needed to reduce CO 2 atmospheric concentration. Microalgae may have an important role in this context. They are photosynthetic microorganisms that are able to fix atmospheric CO 2 using solar energy with efficiency ten times higher than terrestrial plants. The objectives of this study were: (i) to analyse the effect of light supply on the growth of Chlorella vulgaris and Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata; (ii) to assess the atmospheric CO 2 capture by these microalgae; and (iii) to determine the parameters of the Monod model that describe the influence of irradiance on the growth of the selected microalgae. Both microalgae presented higher growth rates with high irradiance values and discontinuous light supply. The continuous supply of light at the highest irradiance value was not beneficial for C. vulgaris due to photooxidation. Additionally, C. vulgaris achieved the highest CO 2 fixation rate with the value of 0.305 g-CO 2 L −1 d −1 . The parameters of the Monod model demonstrated that C. vulgaris can achieve higher specific growth rates (and higher CO 2 fixation rates) if cultivated under higher irradiances than the studied values. The presented results showed that microalgal culture is a promising strategy for CO 2 capture from atmosphere. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Keywords: Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage; Carbon dioxide capture; Chlorella vulgaris; Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11027-013-9463-1 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:masfgc:v:19:y:2014:i:7:p:1109-1117

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11027

DOI: 10.1007/s11027-013-9463-1

Access Statistics for this article

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change is currently edited by Robert Dixon

More articles in Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().