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Language: English

Conflict of Interest: In relation to this article, we declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Publication history: Received November 28, 2014
Accepted April 8, 2015

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Cost-efficient cultivation of Spirulina platensis by chemical absorption of CO2 into medium containing NaOH

Joo-Young Jung Ji-Won Yang Kyochan Kim¹ Kwon-Tack Hwang² Simon MoonGeun Jung^3† Jong-Hee Kwon^4†

Advanced Biomass R&D Center, Building W1-3, KAIST, 291, Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 305-701, Korea ¹Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, KAIST, 291, Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 305-701, Korea ²Department of Food and Nutrition, Nambu University, Gwangju 506-706, Korea ³SK Innovation Global Technology, 325, Expo-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 305-712, Korea ⁴Department of Food Science & Technology and Institute of Agriculture & Life Science, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju 660-701, Korea

jungmoongeun@sk.com

Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering, November 2015, 32(11), 2285-2289(5), 10.1007/s11814-015-0073-3

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Abstract

Spirulina is one of the promising photosynthetic microorganisms as the source for food, cosmetic, and other value-added products such as phycocyanin. However, its production cost associated with cultivation is expensive because of high concentration of bicarbonate (76wt%) in standard Zarrouk medium for Spirulina. Bicarbonate not only acts as a carbon source but also helps maintaining culture medium in alkaline condition, which is essential for growth of Spirulina. The present study demonstrates that bicarbonate (16.8 g/L) in standard Zarrouk medium was completely replaceable by chemical CO2 absorption using 0.2M NaOH and 154.2 mmol CO2 gas could be absorbed in the form of NaHCO3/Na2CO3 into 1 L medium during the process. This process was incorporated into Spirulina cultivation, which enabled us to reduce the total cost of preparation of Zarrouk medium by 34.3% without sacrificing biomass and pigments production. In addition, another important use of NaOH is achievement of cost-efficient and ecofriendly sanitization of culture medium.

Keywords

Chemical Absorption Sodium Hydroxide Carbon Ddioxide Zarrouk Medium Spirulina platensis

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