Use of ultrasound for aiding lipid extraction and biodiesel production of microalgae harvested by chitosan. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • In this work, chitosan, a biodegradable flocculant, was investigated to determine its utility in flocculating microalgae, its effect on cell integrity, and its impact on lipid extraction and the conversion to fatty acid methyl ester (FAME). Results showed that chitosan adequately performed flocculation on Chlorella vulgaris microalgae and achieved a high harvesting efficiency of 96.351.96% when implemented under the following conditions: chitosan dose=120mg/L-1, pH=5, mixing speed=150rpm for 20min, followed by 10min of settling time. Moreover, scanning electron microscope (SEM) combined with transmission electron microscope (TEM) demonstrated that chitosan protected the cells' structure from morphological damage. Finally, the highest lipid extraction yield and biodiesel production was obtained from the chitosan-harvested biomass when the microalgae were pretreated with ultrasound.

published proceedings

  • Environ Technol

altmetric score

  • 1

author list (cited authors)

  • Ma, G., Mu, R., Capareda, S. C., & Qi, F.

citation count

  • 8

complete list of authors

  • Ma, Guixia||Mu, Ruimin||Capareda, Sergio C||Qi, Feng

publication date

  • January 2021