Molasses-based growth and lipid production by Chlorella pyrenoidosa: A potential feedstock for biodiesel. Issue 3 (19th February 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Gaurav, Kumar; Srivastava, Richa; Sharma, Jai Gopal; Singh, Ram; Singh, Vishrut
• Is Part Of: International journal of green energy. Volume 13:Issue 3(2016)
• Page Start: 320
• Page End: 327
• Publication Date: 2016-02-19
• Subjects: Biodiesel; cane molasses -- Chlorella pyrenoidosa -- Lipid -- Modeling; Power resources -- Research -- Periodicals; Energy industries -- Periodicals; Energy development -- Periodicals; 333.79
• DOI: 10.1080/15435075.2014.966268
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1543-5075

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Biodiesel provides a feasible solution to the twin crisis of energy security and environmental concerns prevalent today, and it can be extracted from conventional oil crops as well as microalgae. However, lipid productivity in case of microalgae is much higher and has several advantages as compared with crop plants, so it is a better feedstock for biodiesel. In case of Chlorella pyrenoidosa, the heterotrophic cultured cells were found to be better in terms of lipid production, and ultimately biodiesel production, but the bottleneck is that in this mode glucose is used to feed the cells, which amounts to almost 80% of the total cost of biodiesel production. The purpose of this study is to evaluate and highlight the feasibility of using the industrially cheap cane molasses as a carbon source in place of glucose for a large-scale, low-cost lipid production of Chlorella pyrenoidosa . When treated molasses was used as a carbon source instead of glucose, the biomass sharply increases from 0.89 to 1.22 g L –1 . On the other hand, the total lipid content increases from 0.27 to 0.66 g g –1 . The specific growth rate and yield was higher in treated molasses as compared with that in glucose-supplemented. A mathematical model was also developed based on logistic, Luedeking–Piret, and Luedeking-Piret-like equations. Model predictions were in satisfactory agreement with the measured data, and the mode of lipid production was growth-associated.