Cultivation of microalgae to utilize CO 2 and nutrients in the wastewater to generate biofuel products is a promising research objective. However, the process faces tremendous technical difficulties, especially the harvest of microalgae cells, an economically challenging step. Several researchers recently reported co-culturing of filamentous fungi with microalgae so that microalgae cells can be co-pelletized in order to facilitate the cell harvest. This algae pelletization via the filamentous fungi represents an innovative approach to address both the cost and sustainability issues in algae biofuel production and also has potential with direct commercial applications. This paper reviews the current research status in this area and some possible drawbacks of this method in order to provide some possible directions for the future research.

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.

No abstract

PHYSICOCHEMICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SAGO STARCH OBTAINED FROM FLUIDIZED BED DRYING USING SOLAR AND BIOMASS POWERED CROSS FLOW FLUIDIZED BED DRYER. The research aim is to study the comparative quality of sago starch drying results using cross flow fluidized bed dryer powered by solar and biomass in conventional drying, particularly the chemical composition and physicochemical characteristics. This research was conducted through a drying phase of wet sago starch using a cross flow fluidized bed dryer, and drying in conventional as well as dried sago starch quality testing results are drying. The results of this study indicate that dry sago starch which has been drained by means of cross flow fluidized bed dryer has a chemical composition that does not vary much with starch which is dried by conventional drying, so that the dried sago starch produced by the dryer is very good. On the other hand the use of dryers is the more correct because the physicochemical properties of sago starch using a low drying temperature and drying time is short. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah mempelajari perbandingan kualitas pati sagu hasil pengeringan menggunakan alat pengering cross flow fluidized bed bertenaga surya dan biomassa dengan pengeringan secara konvensional, khususnya komposisi kimia dan karakteristik fisikokimia. Penelitian ini dilakukan melalui beberapa tahapan yaitu pengeringan pati sagu basah menggunakan alat pengering cross flow fluidized bed, pengeringan secara konvensional serta pengujian kualitas pati sagu kering hasil pengeringan. Hasil dari penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa pati sagu kering yang telah dikeringkan dengan alat pengering cross flow fluidized bed memiliki komposisi kimia yang tidak berbeda jauh dengan pati yang dikeringkan dengan cara pengeringan secara konvensional, sehingga pati sagu kering yang dihasilkan oleh alat pengering tersebut sangat baik. Di sisi lain penggunaan alat pengering ini semakin memperbaiki sifat fisikokimia pati sagu sebab menggunakan suhu pengeringan yang rendah dan waktu pengeringan yang singkat.   Kata Kunci: pengering unggun terfluidakan; fisikokimia; pati sagu

The discovery of renewable fuel sources is critical to address the problem of limited fossil fuel energy in meeting the increasing energy demand. In addition, the use of renewable fuels is expected to reduce environmental pollution that has been sourced from CO2 emissions of fossil fuel combustion. One of the future renewable alternative fuel sources is the microalgae. Development of microalgae as a renewable energy source continues to be done because it has advantages over other energy sources, such as high biomass production rates, not competing with foodstuffs, and does not require extensive land for growth. This Thechnilcal review is directed to provide information on the development and utilization of microalgae as a renewable alternative energy source, including harvesting technologies and microalgae convertion into fuel.