{"id":164,"date":"2026-04-08T19:10:04","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T18:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.arkdynamics.org\/?page_id=164"},"modified":"2026-04-19T19:35:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T18:35:10","slug":"microalgae-culture-decision-support-tool","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.arkdynamics.org\/?page_id=164","title":{"rendered":"Microalgae Culture &#8211; Decision Support Tool\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-base-background-color has-background has-link-color wp-elements-897e300f5814cee0d3612417b1035d38\" style=\"border-top-left-radius:20px;border-top-right-radius:20px;border-bottom-left-radius:20px;border-bottom-right-radius:20px\">The growth of microalgae is affected by many factors. Optimising these to provide the highest rates of production, with the most cost-effective solution, is non-trivial and requires various trade-offs.<br><br>To&nbsp;help overcome these challenges, we have&nbsp;developed&nbsp;the&nbsp;<em>Microalgae Culture Decision Support Tool<\/em>&nbsp;(MCDST). The MCDST is a systems dynamics simulation modelling tool.<br><br>A bespoke MCDST can help you configure operations with respect to aspects such as:<br>\u00b7 PBR or pond configuration<br>\u00b7 Media nutrient composition<br>\u00b7 Light regimes<br>\u00b7 Productivity for biomass&nbsp;<em>versus<\/em>&nbsp;for specific chemical composition<br>\u00b7 Harvesting regimes<br><br>The MCDST operates on your Windows PC operating under the&nbsp;Powersim&nbsp;Cockpit application interfacing with MS-Excel.&nbsp;Thus,&nbsp;your data&nbsp;are&nbsp;secure with nothing on the cloud, and no need for real-time internet access.<br><br>Developed from over 30 yrs experience of modelling microalgal physiology, exploiting system dynamics approaches, supported by extensive peer-reviewed publications, these new tools provide an extensive range of input and output options to configure the decision support tool in line with the culture system, and the physiology of the organism of interest.<br><br>We have developed the&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.5281\/zenodo.18642860\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">MCDST-Explorer<\/a><\/em>&nbsp;to&nbsp;provide a zero-cost introduction to the capabilities of more comprehensive bespoke MCDST variants.<br><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"723\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.arkdynamics.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/bioreactor-723x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-288\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.arkdynamics.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/bioreactor-723x1024.png 723w, https:\/\/www.arkdynamics.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/bioreactor-212x300.png 212w, https:\/\/www.arkdynamics.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/bioreactor-768x1088.png 768w, https:\/\/www.arkdynamics.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/bioreactor.png 820w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 723px) 100vw, 723px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The growth of microalgae is affected by many factors. Optimising these to provide the highest rates of production, with the most cost-effective solution, is non-trivial and requires various trade-offs. To&nbsp;help overcome these challenges, we have&nbsp;developed&nbsp;the&nbsp;Microalgae Culture Decision Support Tool&nbsp;(MCDST). The MCDST is a systems dynamics simulation modelling tool. A bespoke MCDST can help you configure [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-164","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arkdynamics.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arkdynamics.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arkdynamics.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arkdynamics.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arkdynamics.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=164"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.arkdynamics.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":291,"href":"https:\/\/www.arkdynamics.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/164\/revisions\/291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arkdynamics.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}