Developing an Algae Culturing System Using a Microcontroller Platform

Including Spirulina platensis, many microalgae have acquired an attention from a diverse field of research because of the highly applicable potentials on many global problems such as energy depletion and green house effects. Not only pharmaceutical or health related field, but also cosmetic science, petroleum engineering, electrical engineering, and other disciplinary fields showed vigorous attentions on this class of species. Because of this popularity, the consumption of the microalgae products rapidly increases and the necessity of the stable and efficient production of the microalgae arouse. However, the technical and financial limitations, stable mass production of microalgae are not easy tasks to solve. Precise control over the environmental conditions in the place where microalgae grow and timely supply of the necessary materials would be the most prerequisite requirements for the stable growth of the microalgae. This requirement might be sufficed by mass cultivation and automated microcontroller system. In this study, a microcontroller system of microalgae culture has been introduced with an Arduino. This microcontroller platform was applied for more effective culturing method, monitoring the multiple environmental conditions: temperature, light, carbon dioxide and monitoring pH change. Our result demonstrated that the algae concentration from the microcontroller group was 16.5% on average which was greater when compared to that from the algae group cultured in natural indoor conditions after 35 days of cultivation. The microcontroller system might be applied with more elaboration in the algae culturing technologies.