From: 2024-11-07 13:15 to 14:00
Place: Seminar Room M 3170-73 in the M-building, LTH
Contact: kristian [dot] soltesz [at] control [dot] lth [dot] se

Date & Time: November 7, 13:15-14:00
Location: Seminar Room M 3170-73 at Dept. of Automatic Control, LTH
Speaker: Malena Caparroz
Title: An introduction to microalgae production process: advantages, main dynamics and control challenges. 

Abstract:  The growth of population, the extensive use of fossil fuels and the intensive urbanization experienced in the last decades have come with serious environmental problems. Society is currently facing hard consequences regarding water contamination and shortage, global warming and climate change. In this context, microalgae production emerges as a promising solution. Microalgae present several positive aspects, such as the fact that they do not need fertile soil and clean water to grow, they generate oxygen and diminish carbon dioxide. They constitute a great solution for greenhouse gases mitigation and removal of pollutant from wastewater. However, for this process to be sustainable and economically viable, a lot of research is yet to be done to optimize its production. Among its most important variables we can find pH, which has very complex dynamics and varying behavior both during the day and in different seasons of the year. Therefore, adaptive modeling and control techniques appear as promising solutions for its control. Some of the implemented techniques until the moment and the problems we face with the systems will be presented during the seminar. 

Biography: Malena studied her Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Electronics Engineering and the Master’s in Industrial Engineering at University of Almería. She is currently a student in the PhD programme in computer science, in which she enrolled in September 2023. She entered the world of research during her Final Degree Work, in which she started studying microalgae production, developing an adaptive model for prediction and control of pH. It was then that she decided to continue this path. During her first year of Master she worked at IFAPA research center on microalgae production systems, in charge of automation tasks and maintenance of the production process, obtaining a deeper knowledge of PLC programming and the lower control layer. Nowadays, her PhD research focuses on the applications of automation and automatic control in this process. Apart from her research work, she devotes time to dissemination activities, taking automatic control and robotics to the streets, mainly to high school students and promoting STEM careers to girls.