Rapid quantitation of lipid in microalgae by time-domain nuclear magnetic resonance

A specific strain of Chlorella protothecoides has been studied in heterotrophic fermentation for increasing cell growth rate and lipid content for biodiesel production. For optimizing the process of fermentation to reduce costs of alga-based biodiesel production, rapid determination of lipid content in microalgal cells is critical. Nile Red (NR) staining and time-domain nuclear magnetic resonance (TD-NMR) have been investigated to quantitate the lipid content in C. protothecoides. Both methods were found feasible and simpler than gravimetric methods that are commonly employed. The TD-NMR method showed better agreement (R2 = 0.9973) with the measured values from lipid extraction experiments than the NR staining method (R2 = 0.9067). Additionally, the smaller standard deviations of the samples (≤ 0.36) analyzed by TD-NMR revealed that the method is accurate and reproducible. The application of TD-NMR for lipid quantitation in C. protothecoides opens up the possibility of determining lipid content in algal fermentation precisely and quickly.