
Which is the ideal solution for you: Glass PBR, Open Pond or Plastic Bag System?
Use our assessment to find the appropriate algae cultivation system for you.
Tubular glass photobioreactors, open pond and plastic bag systems are widely used methods for breeding algae. If you plan to cultivate algae, the first question is which of these methods is best suited to your own requirements.
A wide variety of factors must be taken into account in the planning, such as:
- What are the breeding and production targets?
- What are the different types of costs?
- Which business model is planned?
- What are the requirements for the breeding farm?
- What are the effects of considered investments?
Which breeding method fits better?
There are many parameters that influence the decision for or against an algae cultivation process. SCHOTT has designed an assessment to give you a clear overview that allows you to compare the three algae cultivation methods Glass PBR, Open Pond and Plastic Bag systems. Discover how these procedures are suitable for your specific circumstances and individual requirements.
How to get your assessment
During the assessment, you will need to evaluate eleven important aspects according to your targets and situation that will significantly influence the selection of an algae breeding process.
We have developed eleven questions with a selection of answers that you can answer in the assessment:
- How important is it to you that the biomass produced is of high quality?
- What are your costs for the space in which you want to grow algae?
- How high are your costs for the water you need to grow algae?
- How high are your costs for your employees (in international comparison)?
- How critical is it to keep your algae farm from being contaminated by microorganisms or rotifers?
- How important is it that your production process is absolutely reliable and that a certain output is achieved (e.g. due to delivery obligations)?
- How important are low investment costs for your business model?
- What service life for your algae cultivation system do you expect? Or rather: What is the total production time you expect for your business requirements?
- How important are the sustainability and environmental friendliness of your algae production to you?
- How important is it to you that your algae cultivation system can be cleaned automatically (clean in place)?
- How important is total cost of ownership to you as an evaluation parameter when selecting the appropriate algae cultivation type?
The evaluation of your assessments
After answering the assessment questions, you will receive an evaluation of which of the three methods Tubular Glass PBR, Open Pond and Plastic Bag System are suitable for your requirements.
In your results, you will receive an overall evaluation and a bar chart for each procedure, so that you can compare the suitability of the breeding procedures at a glance. For example, a result could look like this:
Furthermore, for each of the eleven decision parameters you will receive an evaluation of your answer with a detailed explanation of why SCHOTT evaluates the respective parameter as it has done in the assessment.