Lipid Productivity of Marine Microalgae Dunaliella tertiolecta in Marmara Seawater and Johnson’s Media with Different Salinities and Evaluation as A Raw Material Source for Biofuel Production

Abstract

Microalgae are increasingly used in the production of various industrial chemicals. Lipids from major microalgae crops are similar to lipids obtained from oilseed plants and can be converted into biodiesel, moreover, microalgae are more advantageous than plants in oil production in many ways. Therefore, oil and biodiesel production technology from microalgae is a current and interesting research topic. The effect of salinity in the nutrient medium on the growth and lipid productivity of marine microalgae Dunaliella tertiolecta was investigated. The usability of Marmara Seawater (MSW) as a growth medium and its suita-bility for microalgae were also investigated. The highest cell concentration (1.53gdw / L), growth rate (μmax = 0.006h-1) and oil productivity (12.8 (g / L. Day) (10-3)) in nutrient medium (5g) were obtained. On the other hand, the cetane number was calculated according to the dominant arachidic acid (C20:0), it was determined as 74.9 and the average molecular weight of the oil was calculated as 849.1 g / mol. Ac-cording to the experimental results, it is predicted that microalgae lipids will be widely used as an alterna-tive to vegetable oils soon as raw materials.