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Subcritical n-hexane/isopropanol extraction of lipid from wet microalgal pastes of Scenedesmus obliquus

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Abstract

Subcritical co-solvents of n-hexane/isopropanol were primarily utilized to extract lipid from wet microalgal pastes of Scenedesmus obliquus. The effects of key operational parameters were investigated, and the optimal parameters were obtained: solvent ratio of n-hexane to isopropanol was 3:2 (V:V), phase ratio of co-solvents to microalgal biomass was 35:1 (mL:g), reactor stirring speed was 900 rpm, extraction time was 60 min. Additional pretreatment with acid, ultrasonic and microwave as well as enhanced subcritical pressure/heating treatments were also applied to further study their effects on lipid extraction. The results showed that the lipid recovery rate with acid pretreatment was 8.6 and 6.2% higher than ultrasonic and microwave pretreatment; the optimum enhanced subcritical condition was 55 °C with atmospheric pressure. Under optimal operating conditions, the lipid and FAME yield were 13.5 and 7.2%, which was 82.6 and 135.1% higher than the traditional method. The results indicated that the subcritical n-hexane/isopropanol extraction process had promising application potential.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 50978069) and Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Project (JCYJ20150529114024234, JCYJ20170307150223308).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shenzhen Engineering Laboratory of Microalgal Bioenergy, Harbin Institute of Technology Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Xiaoyu Bian, Wenbiao Jin, Qiong Gu, Xu Zhou, Yuhe Xi, Renjie Tu & Song-Fang Han

  2. State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment (SKLUWRE), Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001, China

    Guo-Jun Xie

  3. Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, 73019, USA

    Shu-Hong Gao

  4. Griffith School of Engineering & Centre for Clean Environment and Energy & Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia

    Qilin Wang

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  1. Xiaoyu Bian
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  2. Wenbiao Jin
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  3. Qiong Gu
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  4. Xu Zhou
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  5. Yuhe Xi
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  7. Song-Fang Han
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Correspondence to Wenbiao Jin or Xu Zhou.

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Bian, X., Jin, W., Gu, Q. et al. Subcritical n-hexane/isopropanol extraction of lipid from wet microalgal pastes of Scenedesmus obliquus. World J Microbiol Biotechnol 34, 39 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11274-018-2421-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11274-018-2421-z

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