Comparison of Growth and Lipid Accumulation at Three Different Growth Regimes with Desmodesmus sp.

The production of third generation biofuel and use of microalgae as feedstock have recently gained increased attention in the research area in search of more sustainable processes. These microorganisms have characteristics that offer great potential to produce either feedstock to other process or even final use products. They have fast growth rates and accumulation of intracellular metabolites, including lipids. There are three basic types of cultures in which microalgae can develop: autotrophic, heterotrophic and mixotrophic. The objective of this work was to study the growth of the microalgae Desmodesmus sp. in these three types of cultivations in order to establish the most effective farming strain for lipids production. It was observed that the strain had higher yields of biomass and lipids in the mixotrophic cultivation with glucose (10 g L−1) as the carbon source, obtaining 54.5 × 106 cells mL−1 with a growth rate of 0.28 (days−1) and 25.1% of lipids in a 6 day cultivation time.