Oil production and fatty acid composition of Chlorella vulgaris cultured in nutrient-enriched solid-agar-based medium

This current research demonstrated the potential of culturing microalgae by embedding the microalgae cells in nutrient-enriched solid-agar-based medium (SABM) which was casted as a thin agar-film in a specially design apparatus. Results showed that the cell number increased from 1 × 105 to 9.17 × 107 cells mL−1 at day 21. Upon culture maturation, the microalgal-agar films were easily harvested by peeling them out from the photobioreactor and dried in an oven. The system attained biomass production of 0.98 g 0.3-L−1 culture and total oil content of 25.31% at day 21. Fatty acid analysis revealed that C16:0 and C18:1 were the most dominant fatty acids which constituted 36.9 and 31.3% (of total oil content), respectively. The SABM culturing technique provide an alternative to conventional liquid-medium-based microalgae culturing technique, which has the advantage of by-passing the conventional thickening and dewatering processes during microalgal biomass harvesting.