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Growth Kinetic Model for Microalgae Cultivation in Open Raceway Ponds: A System Dynamics Tool

Abstract Microalgae culture has the potential to play an essential role in the application of circular economy principles. Microalgae cultivation allows utilizing industrial side-waste streams while ensuring biomass for a wide range of applications in the industrial sector. Specifically, cultivation in outdoor open raceway ponds are a preferred solution due to low costs, ease of operation and large-scale application. However, the economic viability of the cultivation system largely depends on the amount of biomass produced, the technology implemented and the microalgae species and strains. For this purpose, screening of numerous physical, chemical, and environmental factors affecting microalgae growth must be performed before implementing large-scale microalgae cultivation systems. Furthermore, to obtain the highest biomass yield, the design and operating parameters for open raceway pond cultivation must be investigated in depth. Therefore, this study proposes a kinetic growth model for microalgae cultivation in open raceway ponds based on System Dynamics modelling approach. The proposed model aims at overcoming the major problems of existing growth evaluation tools such as separate assessment of different parameters, high complexity, time consumption and other challenges. The proposed system dynamics model proves to be a simple yet powerful tool for modelling the behaviour of algae biomass in an open raceway pond.