Optimal Extraction of Lipids from Microalgae, Microcystis

摘要

The triacylglycerol (TAG) was extracted from Microcystis sp. using a mixture of chloroform and methanol (2:1). The fatty acid methyl ester compositions for each method were identified using gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (GC-MS). Techniques such as sonication, bead beating, sonication-hexane solvent, sonication-supercritical nitrogen, supercritical nitrogen-manual, bead beating-hexane solvent and bead beating-supercritical nitrogen were explored to determine the most rapid and efficient cell disruption. Sonication, bead beating and manual methods showed 30.2%, 41.88% and 11.21% overall average dissimilarity respectively. Hierarchical cluster analysis of the fatty acid composition obtained from different methods show four clusters for sonication and three clusters for bead beating. Sonication for a period of 60 minutes yielded higher quantity of fatty acids evident from higher quantity of palmitic acid (53.89%) with sonication of 30 minutes and higher stearic acid (56.27%) when the cells were disrupted through sonication for 60 minutes. This highlights that sonication of 60 minutes is effective for disruption of microalgae Microcystis cells and extraction of lipids.