• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.487-496
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• 2021

Microalgae is one of the promising biodiesel feedstock with high growth rates compared to those of terrestrial oil crops. Despite its numerous advantages, biodiesel production from microalgae needs to reduce energy demand and material costs further to go to commercialization. During solvent extraction of microalgal lipids, lipid-extracted algae (LEA) cell residue is generated as an organic solid waste, about 80-85% of original algal biomass, and requires an appropriate recycling or economic disposal. The resulting LEA still contains significant amount of carbohydrates, proteins, N, P, and other micronutrients. This review will focus on recent advancement in the utilization of LEA as: (i) utilization as nutrients or carbon sources for microalgae and other organisms, (ii) anaerobic digestion to produce biogas or co-fermentation to produce CH₄ and H₂, and (iii) conversion to other forms of biofuel through thermochemical degradation processes. Possible mutual benefits in the integration of microalgae cultivation-biodiesel production-resulting LEA with anaerobic digestion and thermochemical conversion are also discussed.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.796-803
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• 2012

Potential feasibility of nutrients removal and biofuel production with microalgae was evaluated in batch culture. Distribution of microalgae in fresh water including reservoir and river was investigated to search for the species with high content of lipid that could converted into biofuel. Green algae, Chlorella and Scenedesmus sp., these are known as species containing high lipid content for biodiesel production, were observed in both summer and autumn season. However another highly lipid-containing species, botryococcus sp. was not observed in this study. In mixed culture of microalgae using synthesized wastewater medium, green algae were found to be dominant, comparing to other species of diatoms and blue-green algae. And microalgae were also capable of removing nitrogen and phosphorus in batch experiments. During the culture period of 14 days, removal efficiencies of nitrate and phosphorus were 30% and 82%, respectively. Furthermore, content of the intracellular lipid extracted from algae cell was as favorable as 12-30% in the mixed culture where Scenedesmus and Chlorella sp. were dominant. Therefore the mixed culture of microalgae could be applied to biofuel production and tertiary wastewater treatment, even though there are economic barriers to overcome.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.443-447
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• 2016

The microalgae have cellulose as a main structural component of their cell wall and the lignin content in microalgae is much lower than other lignocellulosic biomass. Therefore, fermentable sugar production from microalgae (Tetraselmis KCTC 12236BP) can be carried out under pretreatment without high temperature and high pressure. It was investigated that the effect of hot-water pretreatment using sulfuric acid for lipid extracted algae which is expected to be a next generation biomass. The effects of three major variables including extraction temperature, acid concentration and time on the enzymatic hydrolysis were investigated. Among the tested variables, temperature and acid concentration showed significant effects and optimum pretreatment conditions for the economic operation criteria were obtained as follows: reaction temperature of $120^{\circ}C$, sulfuric acid concentration of 2 mol and pretreatment time of 40 min. Under the optimum conditions of acidic hot water pretreatment, experimentally obtained hydrolysis yield were 95.9% which showed about 2.1 fold higher compared with enzymatic hydrolysis process. Therefore, acid pretreatment under mild condition was proven to be an effective method for fermentable sugar production from lipid extracted microalgae.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.205-210
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• 2015

In this paper, microalgae lipid extractions were performed using conventional organic solvent and supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-$CO_2$) for biodiesel-convertible lipid fractions. The highest levels (58.31%) of fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) content in the lipid extracted by SC-$CO_2$ was obtained, and 18.0 wt.% crude lipid yield was achieved for Bligh-Dyer method. In the SC-$CO_2$ extraction, methanol as a co-solvent was applied to increase the polarity of extract. The experimental results indicated that crude lipid yield, FAME content and yield extracted by combination of SC-$CO_2$ with methanol were 12.5 wt.%, 56.32% and 7.04 wt.%, respectively, and this method could reduce the extraction time from 2 hour to 30 min when compared to SC-$CO_2$ extraction. Therefore, SC-$CO_2$ extraction is proven to be an environmentally-friendly and an effective method for lipid extraction from microalgae.

• Journal of Marine Bioscience and Biotechnology
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.35-42
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• 2017

Hydrothermal liquefaction of lipid-extracted Tetraselmis sp. feedstock containing 80 wt.% water was conducted in a batch reactor at different temperatures (300, 325, and $350^{\circ}C$) and reaction times (5, 10, 20, 40, and 60 min). The biocrude yield, elemental composition and higher heating value obtained at various reaction conditions were used to predict the optimum conditions for maximizing energy recovery of biocrude with good quality. A maximum energy recovery of 67.6% was obtained at $325^{\circ}C$ and 40 min with a high energy density of 31.8 MJ/kg and lower contents of nitrogen and oxygen. Results showed that reaction conditions of $325^{\circ}C$, 40 min was most suitable for maximizing energy recovery while at the same time achieving improved quality of biocrude.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.310-314
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• 2016

The search for natural antioxidants as alternatives to synthetic products is growing. Microalgae have emerged as a source of natural antioxidants with significant and diverse health-promoting properties. In this study, the effects of hot-water extraction conditions on total polyphenol compounds (TPC) production were investigated for lipid extracted microalgae (LEA). In order to enhance the polyphenol productivity, the extraction variables including solvents, temperature, time and ethanol concentration were optimized. The results showed hot-water extraction provided a higher extraction efficiency than the organic solvents and extraction at high temperatures showed a better extraction efficiency. While hot-water extract showed a higher extraction efficiency compared to 98% ethanol extraction, the mixture of water and ethanol (40:60 v/v) showed the highest production of polyphenols. The maximum polyphenols of 3.35 mg GAE (gallic acid equivalent)/g DM were obtained at the optimized extraction time of 10 min, $100^{\circ}C$ and 40% ethanol, respectively. Although Tetraselmis KCTC 12236BP was preprocessed by hexane to remove lipid for bio-diesel production, the results showed LEA contains relatively high level of polyphenols compared to untreated microalgae which can be used in the production of value-added materials. The predictions obtained from the developed Peleg's model were compared with the experimental data under the same operating conditions. The predicted and experimental data were consistent, indicating the reliability of the model.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.57 no.2
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• pp.301-304
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• 2019

Microwave was designed for lipid extraction from green algae (Spirulina platensis). Microalgae-solvent (various solvents) were extracted and heated using microwave at 600 W for around 40 min. The maximum yield obtained within this period was 12.530% of lipid compared to just 1.293% for Soxhlet extraction. Lipid analysis revealed that those with higher essential fatty acid content consist of saturated fatty acid (SAFA) and polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) which could be used for biodiesel production.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.542-547
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• 2017

Ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) has attracted growing interest, as it is an effective method for the rapid extraction of bioactive compounds from plants with a high extraction efficiency comparable to the conventional extraction. In this study, UAE was used for the extraction of polyphenols from lipid extracted microalgae (Tetraselmis KCTC 12236BP) and the effects of five extraction variables on the total phenolic compounds (TPC) were studied. For the optimization of extraction parameters, particle size, solid-to-liquid (L/S) ratio, ethanol concentration, extraction temperature and extraction time have been examined as independent variables. All variables exhibited the significant effects on the extraction of TPC and extraction temperature showed the most significant effect among five variables. The optimal extraction conditions were the extraction using mixed particle, S/L ratio of 10%, ethanol concentration of 60%, extraction temperature of $100^{\circ}C$ and extraction time of 30 min, which gave the 8.7 mg GAE/g DW for TPC. Compared with conventional hot-water extraction, TPC extraction under UAE was increased by up to 1.8 fold with same extraction condition. This study showed that UAE under low temperature and short extraction time was proven to be an effective extraction process for TPC production from LEA compared to conventional hot-water extraction process.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.732-738
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• 2018

Novel carbon-based solid acid catalysts were synthesized through a sustainable route from lipid-extracted microalgal residue of Dunaliella tertiolecta, for biodiesel production. Two carbon-based solid acid catalysts were prepared by surface modification of bio-char with sulfuric acid ($H_2SO_4$) and sulfuryl chloride ($SO_2Cl_2$), respectively. The treated catalysts were characterized and their catalytic activities were evaluated by esterification of oleic acid. The esterification catalytic activity of the $SO_2Cl_2$-treated bio-char was higher ($11.5mmol\;Prod.{\cdot}h^{-1}{\cdot}gCat.\;^{-1}$) than that of commercial catalyst silica-supported Nafion SAC-13 ($2.3mmol\;Prod.{\cdot}h^{-1}{\cdot}gCat.^{-1}$) and $H_2SO_4$-treated bio-char ($5.7mmol\;Prod.{\cdot}h^{-1}{\cdot}gCat.^{-1}$). Reusability of the catalysts was examined. The catalytic activity of the $SO_2Cl_2$-modified catalyst was sustained from the second run after the initial activity dropped after the first run and kept the same activity until the fifth run. It was higher than that of first-used Nafion. These experimental results demonstrate that catalysts from lipid-extracted algae have great potential for the economic and environment-friendly production of biodiesel.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.371-378
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• 2010

For the biodiesel fuel production from microalgae, the lipid from wet and dry samples of green algae Scenedesmus sp. was extracted by using various solvents and pre-treatment methods. Extraction yield of the lyophilized sample was better than that of dry sample. Chloroform/methanol (2:1, v/v) and ultrasonication or homogenization method were also selected as the most effective solvent and pre-treatment methods for lipid extraction, respectively. Under these constraint conditions, optimization experiment of lipid extraction was investigated by Taguchi approach using orthogonal matrix $L_9$ ($3^4$) method. The optimum extraction conditions of lipid extraction was obtained at pre-treatment of homogenization, extraction time of 5 hour, temperature of $35^{\circ}C$, and solvent ratio of 1:20 (w/v). Yield of extraction at optimized condition was 20.55% and it was 96% of total lipid content (21.38%) of Scenedesmus sp.