Comparisons of analysis of fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) of microalgae by chromatographic techniques

Abstract In this study, we compared the performances of three gas chromatography (GC) based microalgal fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) analysis methods that are regularly applied to biofuel research using microalgae, specifically the GC-flame ionization detector (GC-FID) with packed and capillary column and a GC-mass spectrometry (GC–MS) with capillary column. Three strains of Chlorophyta from distinct genera were assayed, namely Scenedesmus obliquus , Coelastrella sp., and Chlorella vulgaris grown in both synthetic growth medium and municipal wastewater. One-way ANOVA indicates statistically significant ( p