Modelling and simulation of photosynthetic microorganism growth: random walk vs. finite difference method

The paper deals with photosynthetic microorganism growth modelling and simulation in a distributed parameter system. Main result concerns the development and comparison of two modeling frameworks for photo-bioreactor modelling. The first “classical” approach is based on PDE (reaction–turbulent diffusion system) and finite difference method. The alternative approach is based on random walk model of transport by turbulent diffusion. The complications residing in modelling of multi-scale transport and reaction phenomena in microalgae are clarified and the solution is chosen. It consists on phenomenological state description of microbial culture by the lumped parameter model of photosynthetic factory (PSF model) in the re-parametrized form, published recently in this journal by Papáček, et al. (2010). Obviously both approaches lead to the same simulation results, nevertheless they provide different advantages.