During the last week of September 11-15, the training course “Modelling and control of industrial scale microalgae processes” took place in the city of Almeria, Spain. The training took place at the IFAPA Research Centre (La Cañada) and the University of Almeria. The ESRs were able to participate in a dynamic course consisting of state-of-the-art lectures, in silico labs with Matlab and field visits at IFAPA to open cultivation systems, e.g. open raceway ponds, thin layer photobioreactors and closed cultivation systems, e.g. tubular photobioreactors used for applications in wastewater treatment and agriculture.
The course covered topics related to the design and operation of open raceway photobioreactors, modelling and simulation of variables such as pH, and monitoring and control of photobioreactors. In addition, techno-economic tools for cost analysis of microalgae processes using open cultivation systems were provided. Finally, visits to the facilities of the companies AQUALIA SA (El Toyo, Almeria) and Biorizon Biorech SL allowed to broaden the perspectives with real industrial applications of microalgae in wastewater treatment and agriculture respectively.