Sistema de controle e monitoramento aplicado ao cultivo de microalgas

Abstract

The research and application of microalgae have been the subject of extensive scientific research and technological development, especially in sectors such as the food, pharmaceutical and bioprocess industries. Microalgae have been recognized for their remarkable biotechnological capacity and the diversity of their applications. Based on this context of applicability of microalgae, the main objective of this work is to design a controlled cultivation environment, implemented in a closed system, employing control techniques using sensors and actuators. The purpose was to make a comparison between a controlled system and an uncontrolled system, obtaining ideal values for the microalgae cultivation parameters, with the aim of optimizing and investigating the growth of these microorganisms. In the development of the controlled system, specific tools were used, including the EasyEda software for the elaboration of the circuit schematic and the production of the printed circuit board, for programming the sensors and the microcontroller, the Arduino IDE was used, as for the monitoring and processing of collected data, a spreadsheet with the Google Sheets tool was used, which enabled the generation of real-time graphs of parameter readings, as well as continuous supervision of the experiment. The variables analyzed during the cultivation of microalgae include light, temperature and pH of the water. The controlled environment cultivation approach was successful compared to cultivation in an uncontrolled environment, as the growth in the controlled environment was 10.9% greater than the uncontrolled environment, thus, the study of cultivation conditions and the system controlled designed, are extremely relevant as they enable a significant increase in the cellular growth of microalgae.