P. A. Sanguino-Barajas ¹, A. F. Barajas-Solano ¹, N. A. Urbina-Suarez ¹, A. D. Gonzalez-Delgado ², C. Barajas-Ferreira ³

Affiliations
1 Departamento de Ciencias del Medio Ambiente, Universidad Francisco de Paula Santander UFPS, Cucuta
2 Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Cartagena, Cartagena, Bolivar, CO
3 Department of Chemical Engineering, Industrial University of Santander, Bucaramanga, CO

Abstract

Background: The production of biofuel and high value products from microalgae exhibits difficulties that have been widely studied to develop viable, efficient and economic methods for recovering metabolites. Objectives: This work is focused on evaluating experimental methods to obtain carbohydrates, proteins and lipids by varying process variables (solvent concentration, temperature, biomass/solvent ratio and moisture content). Methods/Analysis: Carbohydrate and proteins were extracted by acid and alkaline hydrolysis to study the effect of biomass moisture on recovery of these metabolites. Lipids were obtained using hexane and methanol-chloroform methods and its quantification was performed by gravimetric analysis. Findings: It was found that 41.96% and 49.77% of carbohydrates were recovered from C. vulgaris using biomass without thermal pretreatment by acid and alkaline hydrolysis, respectively. Regarding to lipid extraction, hexane was used as solvent for recovering 18.22% of lipids from C. vulgaris. In addition, results suggested that dehydrating biomass at 105°C reduces recovery of high value products. Novelty/Improvement: This study proposes a selective method for extracting metabolites, which enhances efficiency of recovery when is carried out under suitable conditions of biomass moisture, time and solvent volume.

Keywords

Carbohydrates, Flocculation, Lipids, Microalgae, Proteins

Full Text