The Effect of Media on Biomass and Oil Production in Botryococcus braunii Strains Kossou-4 and Overjuyo-3

Abstract

The green algae Botryococcus braunii is widely recognized as a source of oil, including hydrocarbons. However, the slow rate of growth B. braunii hampers its commercial development. This study addresses this by examining the effects of three growth media on biomass and oil production in two B. braunii Race B strains, Kossou-4 and Overjuyo-3. Growth of B. braunii strains in BG11 medium resulted in significantly higher growth (2.3-4.2 and 2.9-6.0 fold increases in Kossou-4 and Overjuyo-3 respectively) compared to the JM and BBM-3N media after 15 days. A similar trend was obtained when biomass was measured indirectly using optical density (OD) and chlorophyll fluorescence. Oil production was also significantly higher in BG11 whether measured as oil weight or absorbance (ODs at 680 and 750 nm). However, the presence of extracellular oil was shown to increase absorbance values making OD measurements less reliable than dry weight assays. Maximum recovery of oil was recorded when hexane was used as solvent compared to hexane-isopropanol and heptane. These results suggest that BG11 is the best growth medium for these two strains under the conditions of this experiment.

Evaluation of media and light source effects on the growth of Botryococcus braunii for biofuel production

“…The test results indicate that changing the light regime and growth media of B. braunii significantly affects biomass and lipid yield, which can be useful tools when converting algae oil into biodiesel. This finding was also consistent with previous studies (Al-Hothaly et al 2015;Boonma et al 2014;Dayananda et al 2007;Lee et al 2010;Ge et al 2011;Nagaraja et al 2014;Pooja and Himabindu 2014;Shen et al 2008;Sivaramakrishnan and Incharoensakdi 2017;Velichkova et al 2012).…”

“…Growth of the B. braunii strains in the BG11 media provided higher growth (2.3-4.2-fold and 2.9-6.0-fold increases in Kossou-4 and Overjuyo-3, respectively) compared to the other growth mediums (Al-Hothaly et al 2015). Table 1 gives the B. braunii growth conditions and outcomes for comparison with our studies.…”

“…B. braunii HM5, which is isolated from the Hill Tribe Museum reservoir, provided the highest growth rate with an optimum conditions (26.5-32.5 °C, 10% CO 2 at pH 7.2), and 6.31 g/L of biomass and 41.74% of hydrocarbon accumulation (Boonma et al 2014). Al-Hothaly et al (2015) investigated the effects of blue green (BG11), bold base (BBM-3n), and Jaworski's media on biomass and oil production in two B. braunii race B strains, Kossou-4 and Overjuyo-3. They reported that B. braunii grew the highest in blue green media compared to the bold base and Jaworski's media.…”

Valorization of Lignocellulosic and Microalgae Biomass

“…Some of the media are the (i) Blue-Green medium, BG-11 (ii) Bold's Basal medium, BBM (iii) Bold's Basal medium modified, BBM-3 N (iv) CHU 13 and (v) Jaworski's Medium, JM. Both municipal and industrial wastewater have the basic nutrients common to all the artificial media designed for microalgae cultivation; and microalgae access these nutrients as nitrates and reactive phosphates from wastewaters to produce biomass and bioproducts [42,43].…”

Improved ammonium removal from industrial wastewater through systematic adaptation of wild type Chlorella pyrenoidosa

“…Pure cultures of B. braunii and S. acuminatus were grown in Bold's Basal Medium (Al-hothaly, Mouradov, et al, 2015) and C. vulgaris, A. platensis and wild type C. pyrenoidosa (from RCF) were grown in Zarrouk's medium initially.…”