Study on cultivation of co-culture microalgae of spirulina platensis and nannochloropsis oculata for biomass production in wastewater

Abstract

have been a number of studies relating to pure cultures of Spirulina platensis (protein rich alga) and a Nannochloropsis oculata (lipid rich alga) for algal biomass production. However, to the best of my knowledge, there has been only one research attempting to co-culture these two algal species for high quality algal biomass production (biomass with high amounts of both lipid and protein). Based on positive results of that research, this research was carried out with the purpose to optimize cultivation conditions for algal biomass production of mixed culture of S. platensis with N. oculata in a nutrient rich wastewater (seafood processing wastewater). Among three investigated factors including seafood processing wastewater ratio, pH and salinity. There were significant difference on both growth rate and DCW between samples with different wastewater concentration and pH condition while salinity only affected on the dcw of algae. Biomass of the co-culture was found to have considerably high lipid (17.3%) and protein content (33.4%). This suggested the feasibility of high quality aquaculture feed production from this co-culture. Initial observation in algal growth in seafood processing wastewater at semipilot scale (the working volume of the culture was 10 L) showed that the production of the algal biomass in a larger scale would be promising guaranteed. Keywords: Spirulina platensis Nannochloropsis oculata Co-culture Seafood processing wastewater Lipid Protein