Evaluation of the operational conditions in the production and morphology of Chlorella sp.

Avaliação das condições operacionais na produção e morfologia de Chlorella sp.

Abstract

It was evaluated the effect of operational conditions in the production of Chlorella sp. after its selection from genus Chlorella sp., Scenedesmus sp., Nannochloris sp., Tetraselmis sp. and Dunaliella salina. Microalgae were inoculated in drinking water with addition of NPK fertilizer (N 24%, P 24%, K 18%), at a concentration of 0.5 g/L, agitation of 150 rpm, temperature 25 °C, light intensity of 1680 lumens at a color temperature of 6400K, without pH control for 8 days. The cellular concentrations obtained were 3.72x10⁷ (Chlorella sp.), 1.36x10⁷ (Scenedesmus sp.), 3.55x10⁷ (Tetraselmis sp.), 5.74x10⁷ (Nannochloris sp.) and 3.45x10⁶ (Dunaliella salina), where the microalgae Chlorella sp., shows invasive capacity in drinking water cultivations. Applying the 2^n-p fractional factorial design concept for the elemental composition of the microalgae and the cellular morphology, it was obtained 44.33% of C, 7.09% of H, 8.53% of N and 0.84% ​​of S for the Chlorella sp.

Keywords:
biomass; microalgae; Chlorella sp; elemental analysis; morphology