Effective recovery of microalgal biomass using various types of emulsion polymers

Microalgae biomass has been considered as one of the potential feedstocks in biofuel production. Yet, biomass harvesting poses a challenge to the overall production cost due to its low cell density. Flocculation has been marked as one of the promising processes in microalgae harvesting technology. I...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of biotechnology 2022-11, Vol.358, p.25-32
Main Authors: Huy, Menghour, Kumar, Gopalakrishnan, Sharma, Pooja, Sirohi, Ranjna, Pandey, Ashok, Kim, Sang-Hyoun
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
anionic
biomass
biotechnology
Cationic
cost effectiveness
emulsions
feedstocks
flocculation
fuel production
gravity
Harvesting process
Mass recovery
microalgae
Mixed microalgae biomass
Polymer flocculants
polymers
sediments
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Microalgae biomass has been considered as one of the potential feedstocks in biofuel production. Yet, biomass harvesting poses a challenge to the overall production cost due to its low cell density. Flocculation has been marked as one of the promising processes in microalgae harvesting technology. In this study, the first screening of two anionic (A-230, and A-330E) and five cationic polymers (C-810E, C-810EL, C-810EB, C-810ELH, and C-810EMB) followed by gravity settling with the mixed microalgae concentration of 2.24 gTSS/L revealed that anionic polymers are less effective. Whereas all cationic polymers achieved above 90% harvesting efficiency. Therefore, the maximum mass recovery of 98.7% with 86.8 gTSS/L sediment content was achieved by adjusting pH to 6–0.6 mL/L (115.178 mg/gbiomass) of C-810E followed by 15-min settling. The cationic polymer addition followed by settling would enable cost-effective downstream processing of microalgal biomass. [Display omitted] •Two anionic and five cationic polymers have been evaluated for microalgae harvest.•Cationic polymers with 0.5 mL/L dosage showed over 90% efficiency.•Peak mass recovery of 98.7% attained by C-810E at dosage 0.6 mL/L and pH 6.0.
ISSN:0168-1656
1873-4863
DOI:10.1016/j.jbiotec.2022.08.010