CO2-removal characteristics of Anacystis nidulans R2 in airlift bioreactors

The cyanobacterium Anacystis nidulans R2 is a photosynthetic procaryote grown only under inorganic carbon conditions. We studied cell-growth (CO2-removal) characteristics of this strain, cultivated photoautotrophically at 30°C in 1.1 dm3 in airlift bioreacters. The highest growth rate of 0.046 h−1 was achieved when the culture was illuminated at 8 klx and sparged with 5% CO2 (volume/volume). But, the level of attainable cell mass concentration was not greatly affected by the CO2 concentration between 5% and 30%. These results are suggestive of an opportunity to integrate this bioreactor as a technique for direct CO2 removal from boiler flue gas.