• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.66-71
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• 2011

Various single solvents were tested to find the effective solvent for the extraction of algae oil from wet-form Chlorella minutissima. In the case of single solvents, their extractabilities for algae oil were increased with their polarity because the water in wet algae cell is to form a solvent shell around the lipids. Based on these results, the wet-form algae samples were treated with a polar alcohol solvent and then a nonpolar solvent was added in algae residue. In the algae oil extraction by ethanol/n-hexane, total lipid contents were 40-50% and composition of triglyceride in extracted oil was 46.50%. Considering solvent toxicity of conventional solvent mixture such as chloroform and methanol for algae oil extraction, the ethanol/n-hexane system was identified as the effective one for the oil extraction from wet-form Chlorella minutissima.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.377-382
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• 2009

The culture condition of growing Chlorella minutissima was optimized to produce biodiesel for fed-batch cultivation. First, under heterotrophic cultivation, the optimum level of glucose was determined to be 10 g/L for 20 days. After, three cultivation conditions were operated: autotrophic, heterotrophic, and mixotrophic growth. The lipid level and the maximum cell concentration from the fed-batch heterotrophic process were 32.0 (%, v/v) and 15.0 (g-dry wt./L) in 20 L flask, respectively. In addition, since the relatively constant specific lipid production rate was observed as 0.040 (% lipid/g-dry wt./day) at the latter period of cultivation time, the fed-batch process could maintain continuous lipid production. Fed-batch process is higher than those values from the batch process. The lipids from the fed-batch process contained over 38% of $C_{18}$, known as the suitable composition for the biodiesel application. For mixotrophic and heterotrophic growth under fed-batch condition, glucose was proved to be an appropriate carbon source for a large scale outdoor cultivation. For fed-batch cultivation, the feeding rate of seawater medium containing glucose was decided to be 0.5 L/day. The mixotrophic cultivation maintained maximum cell concentration of 24 (g-dry wt./L) and the lipid level of 43 (%, w/w). The lipid composition from this process was also proved to be suitable for the biodiesel production. The fatty acids from the mixotrophic growth contains 18% of $C_{17}$ and 49% of $C_{18}$, implying It also tells that C. minutissima is a suitable resource of biodiesel. Especially, the mixotrophic cultivation with fed-batch process might be useful for the large scale cultivation for the biodiesel production.

• ALGAE
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.133-139
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• 2006

Outdoor cultivation of cyanobacterium Spirulina platensis was carried out for 40 days in a batch mode. A half concentration of the SOT based on the underground water was used as culture medium. Working volume was 5.7 tons with 0.2 m depth. During cultivation, mean water temperature, DO and light intensity were all in proper conditions for the S. platensis growth. The adjustment of pH to over 10 with Na2CO3 and addition of the 1.5% natural salt were very effective to delete contaminant organisms, Chlamydomonas moewusii and Chlorella minutissima occurred one after the other in the culture. The mean productivity of the biomass based on the dry cell weight from 14 to 25 days, after the contaminants were deleted, was 7.8 g ·m–2· d–1, which was relatively high productivity in that a half concentration of the SOT was used for the culture. Underground water used in the culture minimized contaminants invasion and addition of the 1.5% natural salt was effective to delete contaminants as well as acted as mineral supplement in outdoor cultivation of S. platensis. Harvesting using the floating activity of S. platensis was effective from mass floating in day time after overnight without agitation and illumination.