• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.468-471
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• 2015

Microalgae have the advantages of being able to utilize the solar energy and culturing at a low cost. In particular, microalgae have a great potential in the production of biodiesel due to the high lipid content. Lipids produced from microalgae are converted to fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) by trans-esterification reaction and FAME is called a biodiesel in general. In addition, microalgae can also be utilized as a substrate for ethanol fermentation after saccharification reaction. In this study, three types of microalgae (Nanochloris, Dunaliella tertiolecta, Tetraselmis) were cultured and their lipid contents were compared. In addition, the effects of lighting period on the growth rate and lipid content were studied. Finally, the amounts of glucose produced from each saccharified microalgae were investigated. As a result, we demonstrated that D. tertiolecta has 43.6% higher lipid content and 22% higher glucose conversion than two others.

• Journal of Marine Bioscience and Biotechnology
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.40-45
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• 2011

Microalgae are one of the major, sustaining components of ecosystem processes and are responsible for biogeochemical reactions that drive our climate changes. Despite this, many marine microalgae are poorly described and little is known of their abundance and distribution along the coastal areas of Sooyoung Bay, Busan, South Korea. The present study has been conducted from November, 2011 to August, 2009 with the objective to provide an overview of the taxonomy diversity and abundance of microalgae along the coastal areas of the Sooyoung Bay. Water samples were collected from different sites, which were located by using a GPS tracker. Chlorophyll fluorescence of the water samples were measured by using ToxY-PAM dual-channel yield analyzer. The chlorophyll fluorescence values were relatively higher during the spring and summer and even in the region near to the sea port. Similarly the abundance of microalgae was higher near the port but diversity index had lower values. The temperature and pH values were same at all the sites. However, only the temperature varied during the sampling period, with higher values during summer and lower in winter. From the preliminary results, the following class of microalgae were found; Bacillariophyceae, Dinophyceae, Silicoflagellate and Cryptophyceae. With a future ongoing work, microalgae are being isolated to establish single cell culture and for identification using light microscopic observations, photography and molecular approaches.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.63-69
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• 2021

Microalgae are primary producers of aquatic ecosystems, securing biodiversity and health of the ecosystem and contributing to reducing the impact of climate change through carbon dioxide fixation. Also, they are useful biomass that can be used as biological resources for producing valuable industrial products. However, harvesting process, which is the separation of microalgal biomass from mixed liquor, is an important bottleneck in use of valorization of microalgae as a bioresource accounting for 20 to 30% of the total production cost. This study investigates the applicability of sewage sludge-derived extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) as bioflucculant for harvesting microalgae. We compared the flocculation characteristics of microalgae using EPSs extracted from sewage sludge by three methods. The flocculation efficiency of microalgae is closely related to the carbohydrate and protein concentrations of EPS. Heat-extracted EPS contains the highest carbohydrate and protein concentrations and can be a best-suited bioflocculant for microalgae recovery with 87.2% flocculation efficiency. Injection of bioflocculant improved the flocculation efficiency of all three different algal strains, Chlorella Vulgaris, Chlamydomonas Asymmetrica, Scenedesmus sp., however the improvement was more significant when it was used for flocculation of Chlamydomonas Asymmetrica with flagella.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.66-75
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• 2021

Microalgae are unicellular microorganisms inhabiting various ecosystems of the world, including marine and freshwater systems and extreme environments. Only a few species have been actively used as food. Microalgae are attracting attention as a means of biological CO2 reduction because they play an important role in absorbing atmospheric CO2 through their rapid growth by photosynthesis in water. Besides, microalgae are considered to be an eco-friendly energy source because they can rapidly produce biomass containing a large quantum of lipids that can be converted into biodiesel. Several microalgae, such as Chlorella spp., Spirulina spp. and Haematococcus spp. have already been commercialized as functional health supplements because they contain diverse nutrients including proteins, vitamins, minerals, and functional substances such as docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), β-glucan, phycocyanin, astaxanthin, etc. Moreover, they have the potential to be used as food materials that can address the protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) which may occur in the future due to population growth. They can be added to various foods in the form of powder or liquid extract for enhancing the quality characteristics of the foods. In this review, we analyzed several microalgae which can be used as food additives and summarized their characteristics and functions that suggest the possibility of a role for microalgae as future food.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.529-535
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• 2002

Efffcts of physico-chemical factors on the zonation and vertical distribution of benthic microalgal communities in the tidal flats of Youngkwang and Canaiin, Korea, were studied. Concentrations of nutrients were low throughout the study period. A 38 species of benthic microaigae was identified. Most of the algae were pennate diatoms with small size. Cell numbers at silty sediments were higher than sandy sediments, and showed high patchy distribution. Zonal distributions of benthic microalgae showed higher variation from silty sediment than sandy sediments. Benthic microalgae showed vertical migration within the upper few mm of sediment with periodicity closely related to tidal cycles. Maximum cells were observed from 0 mm depth both sandy and silty sediments. Cells of benthic microalgae in the 1 - 2 mm depth decreased after desiccation of sediments. The variation of cells was higher at sandy sediments than silty sediments. Cell numbers of benthic microalgae showed no positive relationships with pH and nutrinets except NH$_4$-N.

• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.418-424
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• 2005

The complexity of the biological system/biological systems has been fascinating and challenging for a long time. With the advent of mathematical tools with various omics technology, systems biology was born and is already ubiquitous in every area of biology and biotechnology. Microalgal biotechnology is no exception in this new trend. As tens of microalgal genomes become publicly available on the Internet, vast amounts of data from genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics are reported everyday. Though there has not yet been enough data gathered on microalgal metabolomics, the in silica models for relatively simple cyanobacteria or for organelles, such as chloroplasts, will appear presently. With the help of systems biology, a more in-depth understanding of microalgae will be possible. Consequently, most industrially-interested microalgae can be metabolically redesigned/reconfigured as cell factories. Microalgae will be served as the hosts in white biotechnology.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.154-167
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• 2011

Recently, microalgae have been focused on potential biomass for bio-diesel and biorefinery process. The aim of this paper is to review the biorefinery process including biodesel using microalgae as a microreactor. The state-of-the-art of biodiesel and biorefinery research such as extraction and reaction process as well as byproducts utilization is described. In addition, we suggest possibility for develop bioactive substances and their industrial products from byproducts of microalgae massively obtained after bio-diesel extraction.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.625-631
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• 2015

In this study, low cost bio-flocculants, chitosan, cationic starch and Mg-sericite, were used as a flocculant to harvest freshwater microalgae, Chlorella vulgaris. Chitosan, cationic starch and Mg-sericite separated successfully >98% of C. vulgaris at following optimal parameters: 90 mg/L chitosan at pH 6-7, 70 mg/L cationic starch at pH 9-10 and 50 mg/L Mg-sericite at pH 4-5. A relatively high correlation coefficient (R²) of 0.9993 for chitosan, 0.9971 for catonic starch and 0.9924 for Mg-sericite was obtained. The investigated flocculants amount increased linearly with increasing the microalgae amount. The biopolymer, Mg-sericite, was more effective than that of other investigated flocculants. These results indicated that a bio-flocculants, chitosan, cationic starch and Mg-sericite, could prove to be an effective flocculant for economical production of microalgae biomass. In addition, Mg-sericite was more effective comparing to the other investigated flocculants.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.271-278
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• 2019

Mass cultivation of microalgae is necessary to achieve economically feasible production of microalgal biodiesel. However, the high cost of nutrients is a major limitation. In this study, corncob extract (CCE) was used as an inorganic and organic nutrient source for the mass cultivation of Chlorella vulgaris (C. vulgaris). Chemical composition analysis of CCE revealed that it contained sufficient nutrients for mixotrophic cultivation of C. vulgaris. The highest specific grow rate of C. vulgaris was obtained at pH of 7-8, temperature of $25-30^{\circ}C$, and CCE amount of 5 g/L. In the analysis using various growth models, Luong model was found to be the most suitable empirical formula for mass cultivation of C. vulgaris using CCE. Analysis of biomass and production of triacyglycerol showed that microalgae grown in CCE medium produced more than 17.23% and 3% more unsaturated fatty acids than cells cultured in Jaworski's Medium. These results suggest that growing microalgae in CCE-supplemented medium can increase lipid production. Therefore, CCE, agricultural byproduct, has potential use for mass cultivation of microalgae.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.145-150
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• 2022

Microalgae are attracting attention as a resource for the production of biofuels, food nutrients, biochemicals, and bioplastics. Among a wide range of sources of the biomass, microalgae have been highlighted due to relatively easy cultivation, ability to eliminate carbon dioxide, and low culturing cost. Despite the great potential of microalgal biomass as a biological material, the complexity and relatively expensive downstream processes have inhibited the commercial use of microalgae. In this study, we reviewed recent techniques for microalgal drying for the production of microalgal based products. As drying processes comprise the largest portion of microalgae processing cost, an efficient drying technique is key to the utilization of microalgal biomass.