Production of Chlorella vulgaris as a source of essential fatty acids in a tubular photobioreactor continuously fed with air enriched with CO2 at different concentrations.

To reduce CO2 emissions and simultaneously produce biomass rich in essential fatty acids, Chlorella vulgaris CCAP 211 was continuously grown in a tubular photobioreactor using air alone or air enriched with CO2 as the sole carbon source. While on one hand, nitrogen-limited conditions strongly affected biomass growth, conversely, they almost doubled its lipid fraction. Under these conditions using air enriched with 0, 2, 4, 8, and 16% (v/v) CO2 , the maximum biomass concentration was 1.4, 5.8, 6.6, 6.8, and 6.4 gDB L(-1) on a dry basis, the CO2 consumption rate 62, 380, 391, 433, and 430 mgCO2 L(-1) day(-1) , and the lipid productivity 3.7, 23.7, 24.8, 29.5, and 24.4 mg L(-1) day(-1) , respectively. C. vulgaris was able to grow effectively using CO2 -enriched air, but its chlorophyll a (3.0-3.5 g 100gDB (-1) ), chlorophyll b (2.6-3.0 g 100gDB (-1) ), and lipid contents (10.7-12.0 g 100gDB (-1) ) were not significantly influenced by the presence of CO2 in the air. Most of the fatty acids in C. vulgaris biomass were of the saturated series, mainly myristic, palmitic, and stearic acids, but a portion of no less than 45% consisted of unsaturated fatty acids, and about 80% of these were high added-value essential fatty acids belonging to the ω3 and ω6 series. These results highlight that C. vulgaris biomass could be of great importance for human health when used as food additive or for functional food production.

Ethanol effect on batch and fed-batch Arthrospira platensis growth.

The ability of Arthrospira platensis to use ethanol as a carbon and energy source was investigated by batch process and fed-batch process. A. platensis was cultivated under the effect of a single addition (batch process) and a daily pulse feeding (fed-batch process) of pure ethanol, at different concentrations, to evaluate cell concentration (X) and specific growth rate (µ). A marked increase was observed in the cell concentration of A. platensis in runs with ethanol addition when compared to control cultures without ethanol addition. The fed-batch process using an ethanol concentration of 38 mg L(-1) days(-1) reached the maximum cell concentration of 2,393 ± 241 mg L(-1), about 1.5-fold that obtained in the control culture. In all experiments, the maximum specific growth rate was observed in the early exponential phase of cell growth. In the fed-batch process, µ decreased more slowly than in the batch process and control culture, resulting in the highest final cell concentration. Ethanol can be used as a feasible carbon and energy source for A. platensis growth via a fed-batch process.