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Volume 8, Issue 5 (Suppl) J Bioremediat Biodegrad, an open access journal
ISSN: 2155-6199 Biofuels Congress 2017
September 05-06, 2017
September 05-06, 2017 | London, UK
Biofuels and Bioenergy
6th World Congress on
Growth of the algae Chlorella vulgaris at the photobioreactor and extraction of fatty acids for biodiesel
production
Handan Erturk and H Avni Oktem
Konya Food and Agriculture University, Turkey
Microalga is known to have higher lipid contents and biodiesel efficiency than most plant oil sources e.g. palm oil. We conduct
algae research at our laboratory in Konya, Turkey. We studied the growth of Chlorella vulgaris at the photobioreactor in our
laboratory first. We aimed to use this photobioreactor of lab scale as feed stream to an open pond larger scale bioreactor for future
work. Photobioreactor had three compartments which had separate controls for light and air circulation. Temperature was kept at
22°C - 26°C. The circulation rate was 180 L/hr. The light intensity was set at 16 hours on and 8 hrs off. The nutrient powder was
dissolved in sterile water and the pH of the solution was 6.5-6.7. Inoculation of culture was performed aseptically. The algae culture
was an original strain of Chlorella vulgaris, supplied from the USA. This specific culture was proposed for use as bioenergy and bio
fertiliser due to high lipid content. The continuous growth was achieved at the bioreactor without contamination for more than 9
months. Slurry was dried and algae biomass was obtained. Extraction of lipids of the dried algae was performed by Bligh and Dyer
method. Extracted lipid was subject to transesterification reaction for production of fatty acid methylesters (FAMES). The lipid
contents of sample was analysed by GC. The results for the lipid contents were: palmitic acid: 33%, linoleic acid: 25%, oleic acid: 11%,
palmitoleic acid: 8%, atearic acid, arachidic acid, myristic acid traces. The fatty acid profile was as expected from the literature except
the lipid composition showed some changes due to photobioreactor configuration. We achieved successful growth of algae at the
photobioreactor and extraction of lipids for biodiesel production. Future research for optimization of the conditions of the bioreactor
should be performed.
Figure: A picture of the photobioreactor with the algae grown for nine weeks
Biography
Handan Erturk got her BS and MS degrees in Food Engineering of Middle East Technical University in Turkey. Later she went to USA for graduate study. She
earned her PhD at Penn State Unıversity, Agricultural & Biological Engineering Department. Her expertise and publications were mainly on plant tissue culture,
aseptic growth, modelling of biological systems, micropropagation. After she got back to Turkey, she has been researching and teaching on plant biotechnology,
e.g. cell cultures. She has worked with the industry and now she is an Assistant Professor at the University in Konya, Turkey. She has been working on algae
culture growth and long term maintenance at the laboratory. Her most recent research has been on production of biodiesel and biofertilizers from algae cultures
grown at the laboratory.
Handan Erturk et al., J Bioremediat Biodegrad 2017, 8:5(Suppl)
DOI: 10.4172/2155-6199-C1-008