Outdoor pilot-scale production of Nannochloropsis gaditana: Influence of culture parameters and lipid production rates in tubular photobioreactors

•Long-term outdoor cultures of N. gaditana in pilot tubular reactors are performed.•N. gaditana growth and composition under various culture strategies are studied.•Models predicting growth, lipid and fatty acids production rates are developed.•The influence of nitrate limitation on lipids productivity is modeled.•Continuous operation is compared to two-stage culture to improve lipid accumulation.

This work studied outdoor pilot scale production of Nannochloropsis gaditana in tubular photobioreactors. The growth and biomass composition of the strain were studied under different culture strategies: continuous-mode (varying nutrient supply and dilution rate) and two-stage cultures aiming lipid enhancement. Besides, parameters such as irradiance, specific nitrate input and dilution rate were used to obtain models predicting growth, lipid and fatty acids production rates. The range of optimum dilution rate was 0.31–0.35 1/day with maximum biomass, lipid and fatty acids productivities of 590, 110 and 66.8 mg/l day, respectively. Nitrate limitation led to an increase in lipid and fatty acids contents (from 20.5% to 38.0% and from 16.9% to 23.5%, respectively). Two-stage culture strategy provided similar fatty acids productivities (56.4 mg/l day) but the neutral lipids content was doubled.