Robust control designs for microalgae cultivation in continuous photobioreactors

• Published in: International journal of chemical reactor engineering Vol. 21; no. 4; pp. 521 - 535
• Main Authors: Rodriguez-Jara, Mariana, Ramírez-Castelan, Carlos E., Samano-Perfecto, Quetzalli, Ricardez-Sandoval, Luis A., Puebla, Hector
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: De Gruyter 18.04.2023
• Subjects: biofuel production; capture; microalgae production; nonlinear model predictive control; robust control
• ISSN: 1542-6580; 1542-6580
• DOI: 10.1515/ijcre-2022-0115

Microalgae are used to produce renewable biofuels and high-value components and in bioremediation and CO sequestration tasks. These increasing applications, in conjunction with a desirable constant large-scale productivity, motivate the development and application of practical controllers. This paper addresses the application of robust control schemes for microalgae cultivation in continuous photobioreactors. Due to the model uncertainties and external perturbations, robust control designs are required to guarantee the desired microalgae productivity. Furthermore, simple controller designs are desirable for practical implementation purposes. Therefore, two robust control designs are applied and evaluated in this paper for two relevant case studies of microalgae cultivation in photobioreactors. The first control design is based on an enhanced simple-input output model with uncertain estimation. The second control design is the robust nonlinear model predictive control considering different uncertain scenarios. Numerical simulations of two case studies aimed at lipid production and CO capture under different conditions are presented to evaluate the robust closed-loop performance.