Mixing in active biological fluids

了解微生物在流体环境中的行为是能源收集、二氧化碳封存、生物燃料生产和新药发现等领域许多新技术的关键。例如，生物反应器中的藻类既可以用来消耗来自外部来源的二氧化碳，也可以用于生产生物燃料和其他有用的副产品。在生产高通量系统时，藻类的行为和流动流体中重要化合物的浓度是至关重要的。这个项目考虑了这样一个系统的一个新的数学模型，基于40多年前在斯特拉斯克莱德首次提出的理论描述，以及一个成功的正在进行的研究项目，该项目旨在结合藻类成分的流动、混合和组织，以及关键化合物的平流和扩散。更好地了解这些流动将使这些系统得到优化。该项目的主要目标是在这些系统中产生一个现实的定量数学模型，因为这将影响资源的使用效率（即能源或二氧化碳浓度），并使用它来模拟典型的生物反应器系统，以便为新型生物反应器提供性能预测。

Understanding the behaviour of micro-organisms in a fluid environment is key to many new technologies in the areas of energy harvesting, CO2 sequestration, biofuel production and novel drug discovery. For instance, algae within a bioreactor can either be used to consume CO2 from an external source or in the production of biofuels and other useful by-products. In producing high-throughput systems the behaviour of the algae and the concentrations of important chemical compounds within a flowing fluid is crucial. This project considers a new mathematical model of such systems, based on a theoretical description first proposed at Strathclyde over 40 years ago as well as a successful ongoing research project, which aims to incorporates the flow, mixing and organisation of the algal components, as well as the advection and diffusion of key chemical compounds. A better understanding of such flows will enable the optimisation of such systems. The key aims of the project are to produce a realistic quantitative mathematical model of mixing within these systems, since this will influence the efficiency of the use of resource (i.e. energy source or CO2 concentration), and to use this to model typical bioreactor systems in order to deliver performance predictions for novel bioreactors.