Optimization of Lipid production in Marine Microalgae

Abstract

The bio-fuel production from photosynthetic micro organisms is considered as a green process to produce renewable energy. Recently, microalgae have received much attention as a renewable energy resource due to the photoautotrophic conversion from atmospheric carbon dioxide into biomass, fatty acids, and lipids which can be transformed to biodiesel fuel. In order to optimize microalgal lipids production, effects of different concentration of CO2 and nitrogen limitation with Dunaliella tertiolecta ATCC30929 in a semi-continous culture were investigated in this study. Lipid content of Dunaliella tertiolecta cells at different growth phases was also determined. The results showed that the lipid content from logarithmic phase to stationary phase of Dunaliella tertiolecta was increased from 0.15g L-1to 0.41g L-1.. To improve lipid production, Microalgae with various culture conditions including nitrogen deficient, high light intensity and aeration at 0%, 2% and 5% CO2, were under investigating now.