Field study on attached cultivation of Arthrospira (Spirulina) with carbon dioxide as carbon source

Microalga is considered as a promising candidate for CO2 bio-sequestration. Biofilm attached cultivation is a newly developed technology with many advantages over conventional aqua-suspended methods. In this research, the field performance of this technology was investigated with a 10m(2) pilot system under greenhouse condition by cultivating Arthrospira (Spirulina) platensis with CO2 as carbon source. The system run continuously for two months without contamination bloom. Averaged biomass productivity was 38.3 gm-2 d-1 with protein content over 60% and overall CO2 usage efficiency of 75.1%. Construction cost for the pilot system was over US $ 200 per m(2) which was much higher than that of open pond. However, there was a great reduction space in future large-scale application if the most expensive materials were substituted with cheaper ones. These results indicated the attached cultivation was a promising technology for industrialized application of microalga in CCUS (carbon capture, utilization and storage).