Outdoor Cultivation of Marine Diatoms for Year-Round Production of Biofuels.

Mitsufumi Matsumoto,Yoshiaki Maeda,Tsuyoshi Tanaka,Tomomi Nonoyama,Kiichi Ikeda,Daisuke Nojima,Tomoko Yoshino

doi:10.3390/md15040094

Mitsufumi Matsumoto, Yoshiaki Maeda + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/md15040094

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Abstract

Biofuel production using microalgae is believed to have the advantage of continuous year-round production over crop plants, which have strong seasonality. However, actual year-round production of microalgal lipids using outdoor mass cultivation has rarely been demonstrated. In our previous study, it was demonstrated that the oleaginous diatom, Fistulifera solaris, was culturable in outdoor bioreactors from spring to autumn, whereas biomass and lipid production in winter failed because F. solaris did not grow below 15 °C. Therefore, another candidate strain that is culturable in winter is required. In this study, a cold-tolerant diatom, Mayamaea sp. JPCC CTDA0820, was selected as a promising candidate for biofuel production in winter. Laboratory-scale characterization revealed that this diatom was culturable at temperatures as low as 10 °C. Subsequently, F. solaris (April–October) and Mayamaea sp. JPCC CTDA0820 (November–March) were cultured in outdoor open-pond bioreactors, wherein year-round production of diatom lipids was successfully demonstrated. The maximal values of areal productivities of biomass and lipids reached to 9.79 and 1.80 g/(m2 day) for F. solaris, and 8.62 and 0.92 g/(m2 day) for Mayamaea sp. JPCC CTDA0820, respectively. With the combined use of these two diatom species, stable year-round production of microalgal lipids became possible.

Highlights

Biofuel production from microalgae has attracted a great deal of attention because it offers a number of advantages over terrestrial crop plants [1]
This study provides useful information regarding the stable production of biofuels and outdoor mass cultivation of oleaginous diatoms
JPCC CTDA0820, which was obtained from a screening study of cold-tolerant oleaginous diatoms, was cultured with the goal of achieving year-round production of biofuels in combination with the mesophilic oleaginous diatom F. solaris

Summary

Introduction

Biofuel production from microalgae has attracted a great deal of attention because it offers a number of advantages over terrestrial crop plants [1]. It is estimated that microalgae exhibit higher lipid productivity than plants [2] They do not compete with food and feed, enabling a stable supply of fuel resources [3]. In addition to these advantages, it is believed that microalgal biomass can be produced continuously year-round [4,5]. This useful feature could avoid seasonality, which reduces the biofuel production of terrestrial crop plants. A number of studies have demonstrated outdoor cultivation of oleaginous microalgae [6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14], real-world year-round, outdoor cultivation of oleaginous microalgae has rarely been reported [12,13]

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