Biodegradation of Used Motor Oil and Biofuel Production by Microalgae Coelastrella sp. M60 and Scenedesmus sp. VJ1

Abstract

Microalgae are valuable biological resources for application in the fields of food, feed, fuel, and therapeutics. Recently, their usage was extended for their efficacy in bioremediation of pollutants. In this context, the degradation of used motor oil (UMO) and biodiesel production was performed with the freshwater microalgae Coelastrella sp. M60 and Scenedesmus sp. VJ1. Both microalgae were inoculated into a blue-green 11 medium with different concentrations of UMO as carbon source. The obtained results indicated that microalgae grown in 5 % UMO yielded the maximum lipid content compared to the control and other treatments. TiO 2 was selected as heterogeneous catalyst to examine the fatty acid methyl ester profile of the obtained lipid. The biodegradation of UMO by two different microalgae was also evaluated using GC-MS analysis.

Immobilization Method to Separate Microalgae Biomass for Fatty Acid Methyl Ester Production

“…A very similar trend in the growth curves was exhibited by the immobilized and free cells because the physiological activities of the microalgae cells within the matrix were not affected, despite their being in the immobilized state. The cell density of the immobilized C. vulgaris increased from 2.22 10 7 to 2.17 10 8 cells mL -1 during the period of the exponential phase (cultivation days [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14], in which the microalgae bead becomes greener from day 3 to day 14. Some previous studies had recorded a higher rate of chlorophyll synthesis of the alginate-and carrageenan-immobilized C. vulgaris cells as compared to the free cells.…”

“…Efficient ways to separate microalgae cells from water are, e.g., through membrane filtration and centrifugation, but these techniques consume high power, increase the production costs and are time consuming. Thus, these techniques are not applicable on a large scale [2,3]. The immobilization method was introduced since it does not require energy and involves a simple filtration process [2,4,5].…”