Cultivation of Chlorella sp. HQ in inland saline-alkaline water under different light qualities

Highlights

• Optimal growth of Chlorella in inland saline-alkaline water was achieved by blue LED.

• Lipids of Chlorella sp. HQ were mainly composed of C16:0 and C18:2 under various LEDs.

• The BiodieselAnalyzer^© software was used to evaluate the Chlorella biodiesel quality.

• Chlorella sp. HQ was a high-quality feedstock for biodiesel production.

Abstract

Inland saline-alkaline water can be used for the low-cost cultivation of microalgae, but whether algal biomass under various light sources has the potential to produce biodiesel remains to be developed. Herein, the influence of different light-emitting diode (LEDs) light colors (blue, red, white, mixed blue-red, and mixed blue-white LED) on the growth performance, lipid accumulation, and fatty acid composition of Chlorella sp. HQ cultivated in inland saline-alkaline water was investigated. The highest algal density was obtained under blue LEDs at the end of cultivation, reaching 1.93±0.03 × 10⁷ cells/mL. White LEDs can improve biomass yield, total lipid yield, and triacylglycerol yield per algal cell. The main fatty acid components of Chlorella from inland saline-alkaline water were palmitic acid and linoleic acid. The BiodieselAnalyzer^© software was used to predict algal biodiesel quality by estimating different quality parameters. The cetane number, kinematic viscosity, and density of Chlorella biodiesel were 51.714–67.69, 3.583–3.845 mm²/s, and 0.834–0.863 g/cm³, respectively. This further proved that the Chlorella biomass obtained from inland saline-alkaline water has the potential to be used as a high-quality biodiesel feedstock.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Light quality / Chlorella / Inland saline-alkaline water / Fatty acid / Biodiesel property

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2021ZY75) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52071030). The authors would like to thank Prof. Hu Hong-Ying of Tsinghua University for providing the experimental facilities.

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-021-1479-2 and is accessible for authorized users.

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