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Processing Nannochloropsis gaditana biomass for the extraction of high-value biocompounds

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Abstract

Extraction of carotenoids and fatty acids from microalgae is a technological bottleneck in processing. An improved extraction process was developed to scale the production of these bioproducts from Nannochloropsis gaditana. Different cell disruption methods were evaluated in terms of carotenoid release. Ethanol was substituted with isopropyl alcohol in a three-component solution of water:isopropyl alcohol:hexane (WIH), in which the extracts were separated by solution partitioning. This resulted in higher carotenoid and fatty acid recovery yields if compared with the standard method. The extraction method was replicated on a pilot scale, obtaining similar carotenoid recovery yields, higher than those of the standard method. Although fatty acid recovery was lower than that of the small-scale tests, yields above 85% were obtained. This demonstrated that the method was scalable for the extraction of high-value products from microalgae up to 10-L reactor volume. The use of isopropyl alcohol, which is cheaper than ethanol, and the separation of the solution phases by partitioning (avoiding drying) could contribute to reduce operation costs of downstream processing.

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Funding

This research was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No. 727874 SABANA. The study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES) - Finance Code 001. M.Y. Tsuzuki was granted a research fellowship from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq 306078/2017-1).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Aquaculture, Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Florianópolis, Brazil

    Rafael Sales & Mônica Yumi Tsuzuki

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering and CIAIMBITAL, University of Almería, 04120, Almería, Spain

    María del Carmen Cerón-García, Elvira Navarro-López, Cynthia Victoria González-López, Francisco Gabriel Acién-Fernández & Emilio Molina-Grima

  3. Department of Biology and Geology, University of Almería, 04120, Almería, Spain

    Francisco Javier Alarcón-López

Authors
  1. Rafael Sales
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  2. María del Carmen Cerón-García
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  3. Elvira Navarro-López
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  4. Cynthia Victoria González-López
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  5. Mônica Yumi Tsuzuki
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  6. Francisco Gabriel Acién-Fernández
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  7. Francisco Javier Alarcón-López
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  8. Emilio Molina-Grima
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Correspondence to María del Carmen Cerón-García.

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Sales, R., del Carmen Cerón-García, M., Navarro-López, E. et al. Processing Nannochloropsis gaditana biomass for the extraction of high-value biocompounds. J Appl Phycol 32, 3113–3122 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-020-02156-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-020-02156-7

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