High Density Culture of Porphyridium cruentum in a 42 L Internal Airlift Loop Photobioreactor

1 INTRODUCTION Porphyridium cruentum is a kind of unicellular microalgae, which can live widely in freshwater, marine, brackish, and soil environment[1]. Great attention has been paid to its potential economic value such as the high content of essential high unsaturated fatty acids, especially arachidonic acid (AA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) (ca 50% in the total fatty acids), ploysaccharides, and synthetic pigments, especially phycoerythrin (PE)[2,3]. During cultivation, the cells…     

Concentration and purification of stearidonic,eicosapentaenoic, and docosahexaenoic acids from cod liver oil and the marine microalgaIsochrysis galbana

n-3 Polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFA) from the marine microalgaIsochrysis galbana were concentrated and purified by a two-step process—formation of urea inclusion compounds followed by preparative high-performance liquid chromatography. These methods had been developed previously with fatty acids from cod liver oil. By the urea inclusion compounds method, a mixture that contained 94% (w/w) stearidonic (SA), eicosapentaenoic (EPA), plus docosahexaenoic (DHA) acids (4:1 urea/fatty acid ratio and 4°C crystallization final temperature) was obtained from cod liver oil fatty acids. Further purification of SA, EPA, and DHA was achieved with reverse-phase C₁₈ columns. These isolations were scaled up to a semi-preparative column. A PUFA concentrate was isolated fromI. galbana with methanol/water (80:20, w/w) or ethanol/water (70:30, w/w). With methanol/water, a 96% EPA fraction with 100% yield was obtained, as well as a 94% pure DHA fraction with a 94% yield. With ethanol/water as the mobile phase, EPA and DHA fractions obtained were 92% pure with yields of 84 and 88%, respectively.     

Eicosapentaenoic acid (20∶5n-3) from the marine microalgaPhaeodactylum tricornutum

Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, 20∶5n-3) was obtained from the marine microalgaePhaeodactylum tricornutum by a three-step process: fatty acid extraction by direct saponification of biomass, polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) concentration by formation of urea inclusion compounds, and EPA isolation by semipreparative high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Alternatively, EPA was obtained by a similar two-step process without the PUFA concentration step by the urea method. Direct saponification of biomass was carried out with two solvents that contained KOH for lipid saponification. An increase in yield was obtained because the problems associated with emulsion formation were avoided by separating the biomass from the soap solution before adding hexane for extraction of insaponifiables. The most efficient solvent, ethanol (96%) at 60°C for 1 h, extracted 98.3% of EPA. PUFA were concentrated by the urea method with a urea/fatty acid ratio of 4∶1 at a crystallization temperature of 28°C and by using methanol and ethanol as urea solvents. An EPA concentration ratio of 1.73 (55.2∶31.9) and a recover yield of 78.6% were obtained with methanol as the urea solvent. This PUFA concentrate was used to obtain 93.4% pure EPA by semipreparative HPLC with a reverse-phase, C₁₈, 10 mm i.d.×25-cm column and methanol/water (1% acetic acid), 80∶20 w/w, as the mobile phase. Eighty-five percent of EPA loaded was recovered, and 65.7% of EPA present inP. tricornutum biomass was recovered in highly pure form by this three-step downstream process. Alternatively, 93.6% pure EPA was isolated from the fatty acid extract (without the PUFA concentration step) with 100% EPA recovery yield. This two-step process increases the overall EPA yield to 98.3%, but it is only possible to obtain 20% as much EPA as that obtained by three-step downstream processing.     

利用微藻技术减排CO2的研究

利用诱变育种技术对用来固定CO2的微藻进行育种,获得耐受高CO2浓度、可高效固定CO2的斜生栅藻突变株WUST—04,其最适宜生长的CO2浓度由诱变前的5％提高到诱变后的15％。在5L的光生物反应器中初步研究了该微藻的固碳工艺。结果表明,在适宜的CO2浓度下,微藻的CO2固定效率提高了17．5％,最大CO2固定效率达1．846g／d·L。     

基于微藻培养的沼液处理相关耦合技术进展

基于微藻培养的沼液处理相关耦合技术是近些年沼液资源化处理利用领域的研究热点。本文综述了沼液处理与CO₂固定耦合技术、沼液处理与高值生物质生产耦合技术、沼液处理与生态农业耦合技术等耦合技术的研究发展现状与优缺点，并指出了各耦合技术发展的关键问题，如沼液处理与CO₂固定耦合技术中高CO₂耐受性藻株选育与固碳影响机理研究问题、沼液处理与高值生物质生产耦合技术中低成本、低能耗高值生物质生产技术开发问题、沼液处理与生态农业耦合技术系统性评价体系缺乏问题等。最后，为促进耦合技术突破现有瓶颈，从微藻选育、微藻培养、沼液处理与沼气工程综合经济性4个角度提出相关的建议。     

转基因微藻的研究进展

介绍了有效核转化微藻的方法和策略，以及微藻中密码子使用存在偏爱性，指出微藻作为绿色细胞已用来生产具有特殊价值的代谢物和外源蛋白质，转基因微藻在生物工程上已得到应用。     

Advances in photobioreactors for intensive microalgal production: configurations,operating strategies and applications

Over the past ten years a great deal of literature has focused on the biotechnological potential of microalgal commercial applications, mainly in the field of biofuel production. However, the biofuel production is not yet competitive, mainly due to the incidence of the photobioreactor technology on the process cost. Besides, major advances in classic photobioreactor design, several novel configurations have been proposed in the last 20 years to improve their performance expressed in terms of light absorption, biomass productivity, light to biomass yield and photosynthetic efficiency. This review aims at analyzing and classifying the most recent advances and the several novel approaches to the design, development, control and modeling of photobioreactors. The diverse approaches are grouped considering irradiance strategies, multiphase hydrodynamics, mass transfer mechanisms, modeling approaches and control strategies. Some innovative applications of the photobioreactor technology are also reported. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry     

Dispersed air flotation and foam fractionation for the recovery of microalgae in the production of biodiesel

Microalgae biomass has great potential for being used as feedstock for the sustainable production of biodiesel, as it is able to produce 7–31 times more oil than the top terrestrial crop. It is a green alternative to the currently utilized energy sources as it can reduce CO, CO₂ and hydrocarbon emissions. However, downstream processing costs for the dilute biomass are a major challenge. Foam flotation has been recently investigated for the recovery of microalgae cells from dilute liquid suspensions. A number of variables on the effectiveness of foam flotation for microalgae have been investigated, which include surfactant type and concentration, cell concentration, pH, hydrophobicity, time, growth stage, flow rate, ionic strength, alkalinity, temperature, bubble size, and column size. It appears to be a promising method for the recovery of algae for biofuel production, as a result of the high removal recoveries, good enrichment ratios, ability to process large volumes of biomass, and its ease of operation. However, literature on this subject is scarce, and there are research gaps that should be investigated including characterization of microalgae cells and impact on foam separation and the effect of surfactant as a treatment prior to lipid extraction.