Chitosan as a Flocculant: An Approach to Improve its Solubility for Efficient Harvesting of Microalgae

Chitosan is a promising flocculant for microalgae harvesting, but its scale-up application is not economically supported yet. Low solubility of chitosan in microalgae suspension demands high dosage (as a flocculant) to destabilize the cells, and thus, increases the cost of microalgae harvesting. This study identifies efficient solvents for the chitosan, and optimizes the concentration of solvents and chitosan dose to improve the harvesting efficiency. Chitosan was dissolved in different acids, and subsequently used as a flocculant. The flocculant efficacy was measured in terms of harvesting efficiency and reduction in chemical oxygen demand (COD) of the microalgae suspension. It was found that chitosan dissolved in 0.05 M HCl showed the highest harvesting efficiency ($89{\pm}0.87%$) at only 30 mg/L of dosage. In comparison, 270 mg/L of $FeCl_3{\cdot}6H_2O$ was required to attain $86{\pm}0.083%$ of the harvesting efficiency. $H_2SO_4$ dissolved chitosan required high flocculant dose (150 mg/L) and resulted in relatively low harvesting efficiency ($77{\pm}0.11%$). It was concluded that the efficacy of chitosan is solvent dependent, and the selection of proper solvent can decrease the dosage requirement for microalgae harvesting.