Lipid and total fatty acid productivity in photoautotrophic fresh water microalgae: screening studies towards biodiesel
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Lipid and total fatty acid productivity in photoautotrophic fresh water microalgae: screening studies towards biodiesel production Abd El-Fatah Abomohra & Martin Wagner & Mostafa El-Sheekh & Dieter Hanelt
Received: 5 June 2012 / Revised and accepted: 27 September 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012
Abstract Microalgae are considered as a promising feedstock for biomass production. The selection of the most suitable species is based on several key parameters such as lipid and fatty acid productivity. In the present study, the growth of different microalgae strains was examined in freshwater media for photoautotrophs suited for large-scale applications to identify the most suitable medium for each species. In the optimal medium, Scenedesmus obliquus showed the highest biomass productivity measured as increase of cell dry weight (0.25 g cellu dry weight (CDW) L−1 day−1), while Botryococcus braunii showed the highest lipid and total fatty acid content (430 and 270 mg g−1 CDW, respectively) among the tested species. Regarding lipid and total fatty acid productivity, S. obliquus was the most lipid and total fatty acid productive strain with 41 and 18 mg L−1 day−1 during the exponential phase, respectively. Additionally, the proportion of saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids increased with duration of the incubation in S. obliquus, while polyunsaturated fatty acids decreased. These results nominate S. obliquus as a promising microalga in order to serve as a feedstock for renewable energy production. Keywords Freshwater microalgae . Biomass productivity . Lipid productivity . Fatty acid productivity . Biodiesel Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10811-012-9917-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. A. E.-F. Abomohra : M. Wagner : D. Hanelt (*) Department of Cell Biology and Phycology, University of Hamburg, Ohnhorststrasse 18, 22609 Hamburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] A. E.-F. Abomohra : M. El-Sheekh Phycology Research Unit, Botany Department, Faculty of Science, Tanta University, 31527 Tanta, Egypt
Introduction Microalgae are used for different applications, such as biofuel production (Scott et al. 2010), purification of wastewater (Muñoz and Guieysse 2006), extraction of high value food additives and pharmaceutical products or as food for aquaculture (Spolaore et al. 2006). Successful algal biotechnology mainly depends on choosing the right species with relevant properties such as biomass and fatty acid productivity, respectively. The major economic bottlenecks are algal productivity, followed by labour and harvesting costs (Borowitzka 1992). There are many algae screening programs around the world surveying different algal species for high lipid content. Beginning in 1978, the US Department of Energy’s Aquatic Species Program isolated microalgae from ponds and oceans, amassing a library of over 3,000 strains which were screened based on oil content, growth rate and metabolic efficiency (Sheeha
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