Open AccessSimultaneous use of sodium nitrate and urea as nitrogen sources improves biomass composition of Arthrospira platensis cultivated in a tubular photobioreactor
Author(s) -
MorochoJácome Ana Lucía,
Sato Sunao,
Lara Capurro Guimarães Laís,
Jesus Camila,
Carvalho João Carlos
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
engineering in life sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.547
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1618-2863
pISSN - 1618-0240
DOI - 10.1002/elsc.201500051
Subject(s) - photobioreactor , sodium nitrate , biomass (ecology) , nitrogen , nitrate , urea , food science , sodium , chemistry , botany , biology , agronomy , biochemistry , inorganic chemistry , organic chemistry
Arthrospira platensis is widely cultivated in open ponds for industrial purposes. However, high‐protein A. platensis biomass produced in photobioreactors (PBRs) is recommended for pharmaceutical and cosmetic formulations. A. platensis was cultivated in a 3.5 L tubular airlift PBR using both sodium nitrate and urea as nitrogen sources. Sodium nitrate was added from the start of the cultivation using a batch process. Urea was supplied daily at exponentially increasing feeding rate using a fed‐batch process. The simultaneous optimization of the independent variables, namely, total quantity of sodium nitrate ( m T1 ) and total quantity of urea ( m T2 ), led to an optimal condition of m T1 = 15.0 mmol/L and m T2 = 7.5 mmol/L. Maximum biomass concentration (5183 ± 94 mg/L) corresponding to the highest biomass productivity (683 ± 13 mg/L/day) was obtained under such condition. The addition protocol of both nitrogen sources resulted in high productivities of protein (6.2 ± 0.4 mg/L/day) as well as chlorophyll‐a (372.2 ± 7.7 mg/L/day). Such innovative process could be applied in the large‐scale production of A. platensis using tubular PBR for novel applications.