CO2-REMOVAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ANACYSTIS-NIDULANS R2 IN AIRLIFT BIOREACTORS

The cyanobacterium Anacystis nidulans R2 is a photosynthetic procaryot e grown only under inorganic carbon conditions. We studied cell-growth (CO2-removal) characteristics of this strain, cultivated photoautotro phically at 30 degrees C in 1.1 dm(3) in airlift bioreacters. The high est growth rate of 0.046 h(-1) was achieved when the culture was illum inated at 8 klx and sparged with 5% CO2 (volume/volume). But, the leve l of attainable cell mass concentration was not greatly affected by th e CO2 concentration between 5% and 30%. These results are suggestive o f an opportunity to integrate this bioreactor as a technique for direc t CO2 removal from boiler flue gas.