Abstract:1) The aim of the study was to optimize harvesting method for concentrating microalgae from microalgae mass culture. It is well known that the mass density of microalgae is usually very low and these are small size (5-20 μm) in the culture medium. It is essential that microalgae is harvested and concentrated economically for economical biodiesel production from microalgae. In this study, to determine optimized conditions for microalgae harvesting by chemical flocculation. Flocculation of three algae, Chlorella ellipsoidea, Dunaliella bardawil, and Dunaliella tertiolecta, was performed using various chemical flocculants, such as inorganic flocculants (aluminium sulfate, aluminium potassium sulfate, ferrous sulfate, ferric sulfate, ferric chloride, calcium hydroxide, sodium carbonate, sodium nitrite, and sodium aluminate), organic flocculant (polyacrylamide), and biopolymer flocculants (chitosan and starch). The results indicated that aluminium based inorganic flocculants is suitable for microalgae harvesting such as Chlorella ellipsoidea, Dunaliella bardawil, and Dunaliella tertiolecta. The results also recommended that flocculant doses, agitation speed, agitation time, sedimentation time for economical microalgae harvesting method using chemical flocculants.

1) The harvesting of microalgae is a critical step that precedes biodiesel conversion. The most widely used harvesting technology is flocculation and floatation. In this study, the efficiency of the flocculants aluminum sulfate and poly aluminum chloride were evaluated for harvesting the alga Dunaliella tertiolecta in conjunction with dissolved air floatation. Using the jar test the optimum concentration range for aluminum sulfate was 1.0~1.5 g/L and for poly aluminium chloride, 1.5~2.0 g/L. The degree of coagulation was visualized by microscopy. Further analysis in combination with dissolved air floatation showed that the optimal concentration for aluminum sulfate was 1.1 g/L and for poly aluminum chloride, 1.6 g/L.