Towards green extraction methods from microalgae learning from the classics
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MINI-REVIEW
Towards green extraction methods from microalgae learning from the classics Paola Imbimbo 1 & Luigi D’Elia 1 & Davide Liberti 1 & Giuseppe Olivieri 2,3 & Daria Maria Monti 1 Received: 13 May 2020 / Revised: 29 July 2020 / Accepted: 14 August 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Microalgae started receiving attention as producers of third generation of biofuel, but they are rich in many bioactive compounds. Indeed, they produce many molecules endowed with benefic effects on human health which are highly requested in the market. Thus, it would be important to fractionate algal biomass into its several high-value compounds: this represents the basis of the microalgal biorefinery approach. Usually, conventional extraction methods have been used to extract a single class of molecules, with many side effects on the environment and on human health. The development of a green downstream platform could help in obtaining different class of molecules with high purity along with low environmental impact. This review is focused on technical advances that have been performed, from classic methods to the newest and green ones. Indeed, it is fundamental to set up new procedures that do not affect the biological activity of the extracted molecules. A comparative analysis has been performed among the conventional methods and the new extraction techniques, i.e., switchable solvents and microwave-assisted and compressed fluid extractions. Keywords Microalgae . Green chemistry . Switchable solvents . Microwave-assisted extraction . Compressed fluid extraction . Lipids
Introduction In the last years, high-value bioproducts extracted from microalgae achieved a foothold in the market (Pulz and Gross 2004). Compared with conventional crops, microalgae are considered a fast and continuous source of polyunsaturated fatty acids, carotenoids, and proteins, which exert beneficial effects on humans (Vega-López et al. 2004; Zhang et al. 2014). Despite microalgae representing a huge alternative to
* Giuseppe Olivieri [email protected] * Daria Maria Monti [email protected] 1
Department of Chemical Science, University of Naples Federico II, via Cinthia 4, 80126 Naples, Italy
2
Bioprocess Engineering Group, Wageningen University and Research, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6700AA Wageningen, the Netherlands
3
Department of Chemical, Materials and Industrial Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, Piazzale Tecchio 80, 80125 Napoli, Italy
conventional feedstocks, three main drawbacks limit their use at large scale: (i) cultivation, (ii) harvesting, and (iii) downstream costs (Günerken et al. 2015; Zhang et al. 2016; Youn et al. 2017; Gifuni et al. 2019). The main problems related to cultivation are (i) costs associated to the control of growth parameters, especially the temperature, and (ii) risks related to contaminations (Wang et al. 2013; Molina et al. 2019). To control them, microalgae are generally grown in photobioreactors (PBRs), which allow also obtaining high productivity yields a
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