ANNOUNCEMENTS
Microalgae has emerged as a suitable alternative for biodiesel production owing to simple agriculture patterns, shorter duration for generation, and feasibility of growing in the culture vessel to outdoor photobioreactors. Drying an microalgae is resource intensive for biofuel production with respect to land and energy. The current research focuses on a method of lipid recovery from wet microalgae without the need for drying so that biofuel production efficacy is increased. The research is based on the use of microalgae such as Dunaliella tertiolecta as it does not have cell wall and can be effectively used for biofuel production process. The method is based on the introduction of polar solvent into wet algae for removal of the water inside the cells, which was followed by the introduction of the non-polar solvent and thus extracts lipids at room temperature. The adopted strain Dunaliella tertiolecta has high potential for producing biofuel and it does not require pretreatment for lipid extraction as the strain lacks cell wall. Lipid recovery using 2-propanol/hexane and methanol/ tertiary butyl ether was found to be effective and matched to the extraction efficiency of analytical method. It was found that delayed extraction of harvested algae leads to loss of lipid. The study proposes the use of wet microalgal lipid recovery process in place of dry algal lipid recovery. It facilitates growth and increase in lipid percentage that helps in lipid recovery through the analytical method.
The research also focuses on land-scoping of coastal land for mass cultivation of marine algae for biofuel production. It includes growing local marine strains or consortium in larger scale in outdoor environment, as the strains could acclimatize in the local outdoor conditions. The strains collected from Gujarat and Mumbai grown in high volumes. It results, in the accumulation of isolated strains in the outdoor environment at high volumes.
The study includes positivism and quantitative research approach that provides in-depth insights about the isolation and characterization of the microalgae such as Dunaliella strains that would help in increasing the cultivation of microalgae and augment the extraction of biofuel from them.
Keywords: lipid; extraction; wet microalgae; lipid recovery; dry algal lipid recovery; algal biofuel.
