Abstract
Microalgae harvesting is a labor- and energy-intensive process and new approaches to harvesting microalgae need to be developed in order to decrease the costs. In this study; co-cultivatation of filamentous fungus (Aspergillus niger) and microalgae (Chlorella vulgaris) to form cell pellets was evaluated under different conditions, including organic carbon source (glucose; glycerol; and sodium acetate) concentration; initial concentration of fungal spores and microalgal cells and light. Results showed that 2 g/L of glucose with a 1:300 ratio of fungi to microalgae provided the best culturing conditions for the process to reach >90% of cell harvest efficiency. The results also showed that an organic carbon source was required to sustain the growth of fungi and form the cell pellets. The microalgae/fungi co-cultures at mixotrophic conditions obtained much higher total biomass than pure cultures of each individual strains; indicating the symbiotic relationship between two strains. This can benefit the microbial biofuel production in terms of cell harvest and biomass production.
Highlights
Microalgae show great potential as a biofuel feedstock due to their capability to utilize CO2, higher biomass yield, and fast growth in open ponds or in bioreactor/fermentation units [1,2]
Pelletization of filamentous organisms is more widely used in fungal fermentation, recent studies have revealed that pelletization of filamentous fungi could be applied to harvest microalgal cells
Filamentous fungus (A. niger) cells were co-cultured with microalgal cells (C. vulgaris) cells together in the shake flasks
Summary
Microalgae show great potential as a biofuel feedstock due to their capability to utilize CO2, higher biomass yield, and fast growth in open ponds or in bioreactor/fermentation units [1,2]. Co-pelletization of microalgal cells through co-culturing of microalgae with filamentous fungi is a potential technique to harvest microalgae and efficiently [4]. Some studies have revealed that certain filamentous fungi had the capability to attract microalgal cells by forming pellets, not much information is available on the culture conditions affecting the cell distribution of the co-pellets. It is very important to measure the harvest efficiency quantitatively under different growth conditions for optimizing the co-culture conditions. In this manuscript, the impact of certain co-culture conditions such as carbon source, medium pH, initial concentration of fungal spores, and initial concentration of microalgal cells on the co-pelletization process are discussed
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